With the knowledge available to us in 2023, I’d go as far as saying sites that don’t give users a good UX will likely be punished for it in their search rankings.

I’ve written this article to explore how SEO and UX are linked. Let’s dive right in:

1. What is SEO?
2. How are Google search rankings calculated?
3. Can UX impact search rankings?
4. Five ways to use UX for SEO
   1. Create user-centered content
   2. Create well-structured content
   3. Focus on findability
   4. Create a mobile-friendly UI
   5. Have fast loading times
5. Key takeaways

1. What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it’s the process of helping a website or individual piece of content appear higher in the Google search results.

SEO differs from paid advertising because it’s purely focused on “organic” rankings—this means rankings are achieved without paying Google.

The “optimization” part of SEO consists of the steps you take to make the website or piece of content rank higher. Typically, it includes things like:

• Publishing relevant, fresh, and quality content
• Research and select relevant keywords to include in the content
• Adding alt texts and HTML tags, headers, and descriptions
• Including links to relevant internal and external content

I’ll delve into each of the above and what they mean for UX later on, but you can probably already start to see how some or most of them could lead to an improved user experience.

It’s worth saying that a lot of SEO is exclusively or almost exclusively focused on Google search results. This is understandable because—as of July 2023—Google had a 92% share of the global search engine market:

For a more in-depth piece on SEO, read our SEO Basics: The Complete Beginner’s Guide.

But now that I’ve gone over the very basics of what SEO is, I’m going to explain a bit about how Google rankings are calculated before looking at how UX can impact them.

2. How are Google search rankings calculated?

Thankfully, Google has been very open about how they calculate their rankings. 

Although there’s still some mystery around the exact workings of PageRank and the other algorithms they use, they have published plenty of content around the main factors and categories they evaluate.

(If you want to learn more about the different tools and algorithms Google uses for rankings, you’ll love their documentation page A Guide to Google Search Ranking Systems.)

Ranking Results – How Google Search Works—published on the Google Search homepage—is probably the best source of information about the general categories on which they evaluate websites and content for your search results.

They mention five related categories, or “key factors in your results”, to use their exact words. They are: 

1. Meaning of your query: Google uses language models to understand what users are looking for, which is known as “the intent” behind the query. These language models, which took over 5 years to develop, are also used to match users with the most useful and relevant content for them.

2. Relevance of content: Google’s systems are adept at determining the relevance of the content of billions of web pages, so users don’t have to waste time filtering out irrelevant content. As well as matching keywords in the content to the search query, they also “use aggregated and anonymized interaction data to assess whether search results are relevant to queries”.

3. Quality of content: As well as evaluating the relevance of the content, Google’s systems look for signals that demonstrate which content shows the most “expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.” A well-known aspect of this is the links to a website from other prominent ones, and aggregate feedback from their Search quality evaluation process is also used.

4. Usability of web pages: Important for UXers, Google’s systems also factor in the usability of content. They clearly cite the importance of accessibility to their calculations:  “When all things are relatively equal, content that people will find more accessible may perform better.” They talk about “page experience aspects”, which include factors like mobile responsiveness, amount of ads, and findability as a part of usability. If you want more on this topic, the documentation page Understanding Google Page Experience is a great place to start.

5. Context and settings: This includes things like the location of the user, their past Search history, and their Search settings. All of these and more are used to determine what content is going to be the most relevant and useful for the user at that exact moment. Google uses the example of the different results someone searching for “football” in Chicago would see (American football and the Chicago Bears) compared to someone in London (soccer and the Premier League).

From this, it’s probably already becoming clear to you how UX can impact search results. We’ll explore that in some more detail in the next sections. 

3. Can UX impact search rankings?

If you hadn’t guessed it by now, the answer is “yes”. 

UX can impact search rankings in several ways. Looking at the five factors Google describes as being key to how they evaluate and rank content, three really jump out as strongly linked to UX:

• Relevance of content
• Quality of content
• Usability of web pages

Each of these factors has several aspects—some of which are overlapping and many of which are related to UX.

And to add one more thing that highlights how UX can impact SEO, just take a look at SEO Expert Neil Patel’s four tips for creating content Google respects, which are:

1. “Understand user intent: You need to know what the reader wants to accomplish when they land on your page.

2. Develop a customer persona: You also need to know who your reader is, what they like, what they dislike, and why they’re there.

3. Break up the text: People have short attention spans, and writing giant walls of text doesn’t work anymore; you need to break it up with plenty of headers and images.

4. Make it actionable: There’s nothing worse than reading a piece of content and not getting everything you need to accomplish something. Your content should be thorough, but it must also answer the question, “What now?” Will the reader have everything they need when they finish your article?”

Although they’re lifted directly from a blog about SEO strategies, these four tips are so close to UX design that your inner UXer should have been shouting out “user personas”, “user needs”, “scannability”, “CTAs”, and “user journeys” as you read them.

Now that I’ve established how Google calculates its rankings and that UX can impact these let’s look at five ways you can use UX for better SEO.

4. Five ways to use UX for SEO

It’s worth saying at this point that these five ways you can use UX for SEO shouldn’t be your entire strategy. There are other ways you can boost SEO with UX, but taken together, these make for a good starting point.

1. Create user-centered content

Creating user-centered content is both crucial to a good user experience and a key part of SEO. To create user-centered content, you need to be an advocate for the user. You need to constantly bring it back to the user to make sure the content is what they need in that specific context and location. Questions like these can help you get started:

• Where has the user come from to get to this content?
• What are they trying to achieve? (Another way of looking at this is “What’s the user’s need or problem?”)
• Can they achieve that with this content?
• Can content that isn’t relevant and doesn’t help them achieve their goal be stripped out?
• Is there unnecessary technical terminology and/or internal jargon in the content? 

Answering the above questions normally takes a collaborative effort from UX research, UX design, and UX writers. It requires a deep understanding of your users, their journeys, and their needs.

But a commitment to user-centered content can produce impressive SEO results in the medium and long term, as Google will recognize and reward good quality, relevant content.   

2. Create well-structured content

Going back to the “usability of web pages” factor, you can see that accessibility is often the difference between content ranking highly or not.

Accessibility comprises many things—we’ll explore more of them later— and a major one is structure. Content that is structured to be scannable is going to be both more accessible to all users and more likely to score highly on usability.

(For a deep dive into scannability, check out Scannability: The Complete UX Writer’s Guide.)

Getting your structure right is dependent on understanding your users’ needs, as mentioned in point 1. Once you’ve understood them—and subsequently decided on the key messages that need to be in your content—you can start to structure it logically to help the user quickly find what they’re looking for.

A scannable structure means using things like:

• Headings: Using heading levels like H1 (only once per page), H2, H3, etc., not only help your content to be more accessible by clearly telling readers what it’s about, but it also helps with scannability and signals to Google what the content is about, so it can easily determine its relevance. 
• Put key information in the first two paragraphs: This practice—which is also known as front-loading—means the key info is much more likely to be scanned by your users. You can give them what they need early on or at least show them if they’re in the right place to find what they need. You can apply this principle to the rest of your content by putting information-carrying words at the start of sentences and paragraphs to make it more accessible.
• Short paragraphs and short sentences: Whatever the context and content, these are always better options than walls of text. Short paragraphs and sentences help users digest your content and keep their cognitive load lower. They mean there’s more white space, which supports scannability and accessibility.
• Lists: Lists can be used to simplify complex content, making it more accessible and scannable. If the order of the items in the list is important, use numbers. Otherwise, a bulleted list is fine. And, to help the structure even more, keep the items on the list short and structure them consistently, i.e., all nouns or phrases that start with a verb.
• Visuals: Including visuals like tables, images, and custom graphics (when appropriate) can help with both SEO and accessibility by giving your content more structure and making it easier to digest for a wide audience.

3. Focus on findability

Focusing on findability links back to user-centered and well-structured content. There’s no point spending weeks on user-centered content that the user can’t find in the first place.

This is why Google encourages you to self-assess your content with the question, “How easily can visitors navigate to or locate the main content of your pages?” (Source: Understanding Google Page Experience | Google Search Central | Documentation). 

I don’t have space to explore findability in detail here, but it’s safe to say that getting your information architecture and navigation right, having an easy-to-use search that returns meaningful results, and creating solid on-page navigation is a great foundation.

For those of you who want to learn more on the topic, our blog A Beginner’s Guide To Information Architecture is a great starting point.

4. Create a mobile-friendly UI

Another way in which UX and SEO overlap is in the importance of mobile-friendly UIs. Google clearly cites the importance of this factor in their documentation on the “Usability of web pages”. As well as reaping SEO benefits, responsiveness contributes to a strong UX and is a key part of accessibility.

If we again look into Google’s documentation about how they evaluate and rank content, we can find guidelines about “Mobile-first Indexing Best Practices”.

This is because, in Google’s own words, they “predominantly use(s) the mobile version of a site’s content, crawled with the smartphone agent, for indexing and ranking.” 

But what does this mean for you as a UX designer? Three things jumped out from the documentation as important tasks for UX designers:

1. Create a mobile-friendly site
2. Make sure that Google can access and render your content
3. Make sure that content is the same on desktop and mobile

And I highly recommend reading the linked content on Mobile-first Indexing Best Practices for more detailed insights on how a mobile-friendly UI can boost your SEO.

5. Have fast loading times

Google is very clear that site speed and loading times are a key part of the usability of web pages, which is a high-level category they evaluate websites and content on. 

As a UX designer, site speed and loading times won’t be solely your responsibility of course, but you can definitely play a role in identifying and resolving any issues that come up (in most organizations, this will be a collaborative effort with engineering).

You can check your content’s loading times on Google’s tool PageSpeed Insights and get familiar with Google’s Core Web Vitals, which is a set of metrics to measure “real-world user experience” and includes loading times and visual stability.

Now that we’ve gone through five ways you can use UX for better SEO let’s wrap things up with a few key takeaways.

Key takeaways

The relationship between UX and SEO is now stronger than ever, and being successful as a UX designer—or as an SEO specialist for that matter—requires a solid understanding of it.

Fortunately, Google itself is quite open about how it evaluates and ranks websites and content in its search results, and from this, we can see that a lot of the key factors they look at are related to good UX.

They even go as far as saying that—if everything else is roughly equal quality-wise—the most accessible content will be ranked higher.

So, if you haven’t spent time thinking about the five key ways you can use UX for SEO—creating user-centered content, creating well-structured content, focusing on findability, having a mobile-friendly UI, and having fast loading times—today’s probably the day you should. 

Did you enjoy this article? You might also like these:

• A Complete Guide to On-Page SEO [Updated for 2023]
• 7 Free SEO Courses For Digital Marketing Beginners
• 11 of the Best Online UX Design Courses in 2023 

But whether users notice it or not, good UX is fundamental to any positive interaction experience. You can dress up a product in gorgeous graphics and use the latest code to make it work, but if the UX is confusing or counterintuitive, users are bound to feel frustrated and annoyed.

UX can involve many things, from smart navigation to clear organization of information and from responsive communication to surfacing relevant choices. There’s also plenty of non-digital UX out there in the world! Let’s take a look at some examples of brilliant UX design. In each of these, I’ll focus on the parts of an interaction that are particularly well done and what you can learn from them.

Here are the examples we’re going to explore:

1. Disney+ landing page
2. Quibi rotating video
3. Apple compare items
4. Threadless add item experience
5. Zoom experience
6. Finding more examples of great UX design

Let’s get started!

(Image credit: Cynthia Vinney, Disney+ landing page)

1. Disney+ landing page

Sometimes, a user experience can be improved by making one simple change to an otherwise familiar design. The Disney-centric streaming service Disney+, which assembles all the movies and TV shows from the company’s vast catalogue in one place, does just that. After logging in, users are presented with a landing page that will look familiar to anyone who’s ever used Netflix. It includes a big featured area at the top and horizontal rows of video options organized by genre or other recommendation criteria below.

But in between those two familiar elements is a set of logos representing Disney’s five brands. Because each of these brands is so popular and already has its own identity, each logo immediately communicates what users can expect if they select one of them.

Craving a superhero movie? Go to the Marvel section. In the mood for a nature documentary? Check out National Geographic. Want to travel to a galaxy far, far away? Select Star Wars. By recognizing the content available on Disney+ can be categorized in a unique way that communicates something valuable to users, the streamer provides a new means for users to quickly access the movies and shows they’re searching for.

What We Can Learn From Disney+

Always consider new ways to divide information, even for UX designs that are based on established interaction patterns. While you may not want to change a classic user experience too much, if there is an innovative, easy-to-understand way to communicate categories of information and help users navigate to the content they want, users will appreciate its inclusion in the design.

(Image credit: Emerson Schroeter, Quibi landing page)

2. Quibi rotating video

The mobile-first video-streaming app Quibi launched with one especially exciting innovation: rotating video. While most video content appears in landscape no matter how you orient your mobile device, Quibi’s videos fill the screen whether your device is in portrait or landscape, and also rotate seamlessly between the two. While the technology to make this work is no doubt complex, the idea behind the innovation is an example of fantastic UX design. It recognizes a UX issue with the way we watch videos on our mobile devices and creates a simple, elegant solution to fix it—a solution that seems so obvious, many users will likely wonder why it didn’t happen sooner.

What We Can Learn From Quibi

Sometimes an obvious solution is the best one. For long-running issues with interactive experiences, such as the orientation of videos, UX designers and users may easily reach the same conclusion about how to improve things. In this case, the UX designer shouldn’t over-complicate or over-think things; they should simply give users what they want.

(Image credit: Cynthia Vinney, Apple’s Compare Phone Models)

3. Apple compare items

There are many parts of Apple’s website that make it a successful user experience, however, one of my favorite parts of the site is the compare products feature. There, you can pick up to three items from a particular product category and see a side-by-side comparison, something that’s especially useful for products whose specs may only be somewhat different.

(Image credit: Cynthia Vinney, Apple’s Compare Phone Models – Quick Look)

The top of the compare products page is dominated by images of the users’ chosen products and their price points. Then, information is served up in a logical sequence as the user scrolls down the page, starting with a general summary “Quick Look” and getting increasingly technical.

The user can also navigate to buy the product at the top of the page or to a page to learn even more at the bottom. Meanwhile, the name of each product remains at the top of the page as the user scrolls so they never have to worry about losing track of which information is about which product.

Apple’s comparison experience replicates comparison shopping in a store while improving on it by providing a digital format created specifically for this task. This results in an incredibly useful tool that makes shopping easier.

What We Can Learn From Apple

While we’ve all gotten used to shopping online, little moments of innovation and assistance make the experience smoother and more enjoyable. Especially when it comes to big-ticket items or items that are difficult to choose between, anything that helps the user make their purchase decision more easily will improve their experience.

(Image credit: Cynthia Vinney, Threadless)

4. Threadless add item experience

Threadless sells t-shirts designed by a community of talented artists. The company has an irreverent vibe that revels in creativity, and that shows in the experience they’ve created to add an item to a user’s cart. At its core, this experience is like that of many e-commerce apps, but by adding a few unique touches, Threadless makes it more responsive and delightful.

After selecting the “Add to Cart” button on a product page, a pop-up appears acknowledging the addition to the user’s shopping cart, showing the item that was added, and providing the total price of all the items that are in the shopping cart. This level of communication not only assures the user they’ve successfully added the item they intended, it also lets them know approximately how much they’re spending — especially useful if you’re on a budget.

Plus, the cartoon of the cart at the top of the pop-up adds a level of whimsy and joy to the experience that’s in-line with the Threadless brand and makes the experience more fun.

What We Can Learn From Threadless

It’s important to communicate with users that they’re on the right track as they navigate through a digital experience. In an e-commerce experience, this means acknowledging when a user has added an item to their shopping cart. After all, the user’s action means they intend to buy the specific product, so letting them know they’ve chosen the right product and the right quantity of that product reassures them and makes the user experience feel that much smoother. If small moments of fun or delight in the way you communicate that information can be added along the way, so much the better.

(Image credit: Cynthia Vinney, Zoom)

5. Zoom experience

Zoom has become the go-to virtual meeting app—and it’s easy to understand why. Zoom’s home screen distills what can seem like a complicated endeavor into four simple options. You can start a meeting immediately, schedule a new meeting, join a meeting that someone else scheduled, or share your screen. After selecting any of these options, Zoom guides users to a new window where they can easily complete the task. The experience doesn’t include a lot of extra bells and whistles, but it doesn’t need to. The app surfaces the most likely tasks users will want to use Zoom to complete and makes it easy to get started.

What We Can Learn From Zoom

Zoom keeps things simple by focusing its top-level choices on the tasks users are most likely to use the app for. UX designers should always have a good idea of the tasks users will want to complete on the product they’re designing. Once they understand what a user wants to do with a product, the UX designer should surface the first step in the most important tasks as early in the user experience as possible.

Finding more examples of brilliant UX design

These are just a few examples of brilliant UX design, but there are many more. One way to find them is to start paying attention to the sites, apps and other digital products you use everyday.

Consider what you like about them and what they do differently from other products you’ve used. Pay particular attention to interactions that delight you or that you particularly enjoy. That way, anytime you touch a computer or mobile device you can learn something new about UX design.

Another is asking professionals which companies, apps, or sites they’re impressed by. We did just that in this video, by asking UX designers in New York which examples of great design they’re in love with:

Wrapping it up

If you want to learn more and become a brilliant UX designer yourself, then CareerFoundry’s free 5-day UX short course is a great start.

On top of that, you’ll also find the following articles useful:

• These Are The 11 Best Online Courses to Learn UX Design In 2023
• What is Usability? (And How to Do It)
• 3 Examples of interaction design at its best

Making sure you’ve got an impressive portfolio to your name is important for both fresh-faced UX designers and seasoned industry veterans.

In this article, we’ll try to inspire you with awesome UX portfolio examples and UX design portfolio best practices.

The 20 Best UX Portfolios

Without further ado, here are our picks of the best UX design portfolio examples.

1. Gloria Lo nails the high-impact introduction

Who is Gloria Lo?

Gloria Lo is a self-taught product designer based in Sydney, Australia. In her own words, she is passionate about improving the lives of others through design and is constantly looking to learn new things every day.

What makes Gloria’s UX design portfolio so great?

One of the first things your UX portfolio should do is introduce you as a designer. Employers and potential clients want to know who you are and what you’re all about—and they should be able to find this out within seconds of landing on your portfolio website.

Gloria has nailed her designer introduction with a three-tiered approach. First, she treats us to a bold, eye-catching headline that describes her in terms of her favorite activities.

In just four simple verbs, we know that Gloria is a creative, multi-talented soul with quite a few hobbies in her repertoire. Oh, and these verbs “light up” in different colors when you hover over them—a nice additional dash of personality!

After such an enticing headline, we’re inevitably curious to know more about Gloria—and sure enough, her portfolio delivers. Directly beneath that unmissable heading, Gloria tells us exactly what she does and what she’s passionate about in just two sentences.

Gloria has mastered the delicate art of brevity while still managing to convey the most important information—not an easy feat!

By now, Gloria has well and truly piqued the viewer’s interest. Luckily, her portfolio also features a comprehensive “About” page, complete with a video, a section detailing her values (with the help of emojis), a very thorough testimonial from a former employer, and links to her music and artwork.

What can we learn from Gloria Lo?

When it comes to your own UX design portfolio, make like Gloria and be sure to include a meaningful introduction. Keep it compact yet high-impact on the home page, and then provide more detail in a dedicated “About” section.

Besides crafting a gripping “about me” statement, try to inject a bit of personality into the visual design, too—just like Gloria’s colorful hover effect.

Key takeaway

The viewer should know exactly who you are and what you do within seconds of landing on your UX design portfolio. Craft a compelling headline that provides all the most important information at a glance.

View Gloria Lo’s full portfolio website

2. Moritz Oesterlau masters the art of storytelling through case studies

Who is Moritz Oesterlau?

Moritz Oesterlau is a multi-skilled product/UX designer based in Germany. He also dabbles in interface design and frontend development.

Moritz studied UX design with CareerFoundry and is now part of the Global Goals Curriculum 2030 team, helping to shape a democratic, just, and sustainable society through the power of education.

What makes Moritz’s UX design portfolio so great?

Moritz’s portfolio really gets to the heart of what UX design is all about: going through a process to solve a user problem. Moritz doesn’t just show the finished product; he shares, in detail, all the methods and processes that got him there.

Each project is presented as a case study, which immediately tells us we’re in for a lot more than just eye candy.

Click on any one of these case studies and you almost feel like you’re in the room with Moritz himself—a fly-on-the-wall as he works through his UX design process.

Take the Approach to Digitization in Education case study, for example. Moritz leaves no stone unturned, documenting the project from start to finish.

He takes us on a logical journey, putting the design challenge into context before going through competitor analysis, interviews and surveys, building empathy and creating user personas, defining the information architecture, wireframing, prototyping, and usability testing.

For each step, he explains what he did, why he did it, and what he learned as a result.

What can we learn from Moritz Oesterlau?

When showcasing your UX design work, follow Moritz’s example and place your process front and center. You’ll notice that Moritz doesn’t show the finished product until the very end of each case study, and that’s because he’s telling a logical story.

With each case study, start from the beginning and guide the viewer through the main steps that led you to the final solution. It’s okay to include screenshots of a beautiful end product, but make sure you’ve documented your process in detail first.

Key takeaway

Showcase your process, not just the finished product. Write about the methods you used, what you learned along the way, the challenges you came up against, and how you solved certain problems. Each case study should tell a complete, logical story.

View Moritz Oesterlau’s full portfolio website

3. Elizabeth Lin reigns supreme with visual storytelling

Who is Elizabeth Lin?

Elizabeth Lin is a San Francisco-based product designer and self-proclaimed fashion, teaching, and classical saxophone enthusiast.

What makes Elizabeth’s UX design portfolio so great?

Elizabeth Lin’s portfolio provides another excellent example of storytelling. Just like Moritz, she presents her design work in the form of case studies, documenting her process from start to finish.

What really stands out in Elizabeth’s portfolio, though, is her use of visuals to support the narrative she’s weaving.

Each point in her case study is illustrated with some kind of visual element—be it a virtual wall of Post-it notes, a survey form that was sent to research participants, or early-stage prototypes.

Another effective storytelling technique that Elizabeth uses is to include little bitesized notes and reflections down the right-hand side.

Set in a different font and color to the main body text, these snippets catch your eye as you scroll.

They provide further, more personal insights into the project—such as “It was cool seeing how differently teachers would use this dashboard” or “We didn’t move forward with this exploration because we wanted to validate the base solution first.”

Supporting your case studies with visual artifacts really brings the project to life. Elizabeth’s portfolio illustrates perfectly how visual and textual storytelling should work together to demonstrate your UX design process.

What can we learn from Elizabeth Lin?

The aim of your UX portfolio is to both show and tell. Just like Elizabeth, support each case study with meaningful visuals—that is, real artifacts from your project, not just illustrations.

Every time you work on a new design project, document your process: take screenshots of user research surveys you send out, snap photos of your wall covered in sticky notes after a heavy brainstorming session, and keep hold of your wireframes as they progress from low to high fidelity.

When it comes to adding a new case study to your portfolio, these artifacts will help you tell a logical story.

Key takeaway

Don’t just tell the story of each project; bring it to life with visual artifacts. For each step you go through in your case study, include a photo or screenshot of how it looked in action.

View Elizabeth Lin’s full portfolio website

4. Olivia Truong showcases her approach to problem-solving

Who is Olivia Truong?

Olivia Truong is a product designer based in Boston, Massachusetts. In her own words, Olivia likes to go out into the world and capture its beauty and weirdness.

What makes Olivia’s UX design portfolio so great?

Above all else, UX designers are problem-solvers. Your UX design portfolio should therefore demonstrate how you identify and tackle a variety of user problems. Olivia’s portfolio does a great job of this, as you’ll see in her Routr case study.

Olivia kicks off her case study by framing the problem in a personal, relatable way. She doesn’t just talk about the “user” problem—she frames it as “our” problem, inviting the reader to step into the user’s shoes, just as she has done.

Next, Olivia explains, in detail, how she set about trying to solve this problem—in a section aptly named “There Must Be Something Out There”. We learn how she scoured the internet and App Store for a solution, only to find that none of the existing solutions fit the bill.

In the section that follows, “Taking The Dive”, Olivia shares the next steps in her problem-solving journey: brainstorming the elements of a successful date.

After thoroughly framing the problem and describing her approach to solving it, Olivia moves onto “The Making Of Routr.” Notice how, even when talking about her solution, Olivia consistently refers back to the original user problem.

Olivia’s portfolio portrays her as a thoughtful problem-solver—granting her huge bonus points in the eyes of any recruiter or potential client. This focus on problem-solving also conveys another essential UX trait: empathy for the user.

When reading Olivia’s case study, you don’t get the feeling that she’s just going through the motions; she’s genuinely engaged in the problem and how she can solve it for the user. That’s the sign of a passionate UX designer!

What can we learn from Olivia Truong?

UX designers are problem-solvers, so make sure your portfolio reflects that. There are two key lessons we can learn from Olivia’s portfolio: first, start each case study by framing the problem in detail, and second, frame the problem in a way that conveys empathy.

Above all, think about the language you use. Don’t just state the problem; relate to it and put some emotion behind it! Olivia describes how planning dates was a “headache” because “coming up with ideas was not the easiest thing to do in our busy lives.”

This is much more personal and empathy-driven than if she’d said “Users struggle to come up with date ideas because they’re so busy.” Last but not least, refer back to the original problem throughout—even when you progress to the solution.

Key takeaway

Your UX design portfolio should demonstrate your approach to problem-solving. Kick off each case study by framing the problem in detail, using emotive language to convey empathy. Refer back to the problem throughout.

View Olivia Truong’s full portfolio website

5. Priyanka Gupta is the queen of the unsolicited redesign

Who is Priyanka Gupta?

Priyanka Gupta is a product designer and tech enthusiast based in San Francisco. Aside from creating awesome user experiences, Priyanka is also pretty active on Medium.

What makes Priyanka’s UX design portfolio so great?

Early on in your UX career, you might struggle to fill your portfolio with real projects. As your career progresses, you might look for ways to make your portfolio stand out. So what can you do?

Cue the unsolicited redesign à la Priyanka Gupta.

When Priyanka runs into bad UX, she can’t help but do something about it. Where most of us might just abandon ship and find an alternative product, Priyanka goes above and beyond: she redesigns the entire experience!

So, in addition to real client projects, Priyanka’s UX portfolio also showcases some rather impressive unsolicited redesigns.

One can’t help but be impressed by Priyanka’s initiative and drive. She’s gone out of her way to redesign an entire digital experience, just because she’s passionate about good UX—how cool is that?!

What’s also interesting is how Priyanka chooses to showcase these redesigns. She could just stick to the standard case study format, but as we know, she’s the kind of designer who likes to go above and beyond.

Click on one of her unsolicited portfolio pieces and you’ll be taken to a full-on, published blog post. Nice!

Despite the fact that these unsolicited redesigns are pure “passion projects”, Priyanka lends them the credibility they deserve by documenting her process in detail.

In her redesign of the Sephora iOS app, she starts by framing the problem: “Despite using the app religiously, I had trouble navigating through it. After observing that other people also experienced issues with the app, I pursued this redesign as an opportunity to improve the experience in any way I could.”

What follows is a detailed breakdown of every step she took to redesign the app, from brand analysis, user research, and affinity mapping, right through to persona creation, prototyping, and implementation—not forgetting those all-important visual artifacts that are absolutely crucial to UX storytelling!

What can we learn from Priyanka Gupta?

Priyanka is an experienced UX designer who presumably has plenty of real projects for her portfolio. This doesn’t stop her from conducting unsolicited redesigns when she comes across intolerably bad UX—as she puts it, it’s like an itch she just needs to scratch!

If you’re a new UX designer trying to build up your portfolio, take a leaf out of Priyanka’s book and complete some unsolicited redesigns of your own. This is a great way to demonstrate initiative and show that you’re a proactive designer who is willing to go the extra mile.

Just as Priyanka does, be transparent about the fact that these are unsolicited projects—a simple disclaimer is all you need.

Another valuable takeaway from Priyanka’s portfolio is the power of blogging. Priyanka doesn’t just limit herself to her portfolio website; she also shares her case studies and tips via Medium (where she’s accrued over a thousand followers!).

There are many different ways to share your process, so don’t be afraid to try a multichannel approach.

Key takeaway

Unsolicited redesigns are an excellent way to build up your UX portfolio and demonstrate your initiative as a designer. As always, frame the problem, document your process, and tell a good story—and don’t forget to include a disclaimer.

View Priyanka Gupta’s full portfolio website

6. Lola Jiang delivers measurable outcomes and metrics

Who is Lola Jiang?

Lola Jiang is a California-based UX designer currently working at Google. Lola’s impressive resume includes having worked at YouTube as an interaction designer.

What makes Lola’s UX design portfolio so great?

One of the biggest challenges you’ll face as a UX designer is measuring and demonstrating the impact of your work. You know you’ve improved the user experience, but how do you substantiate that?

Look no further than Lola Jiang’s portfolio. Lola does an extremely important (yet scarce) thing: she puts the measurable impact of her UX design in the context of business needs.

Take her AI Training Platform case study, for example. Following a brief introduction to the project (literally one sentence), Lola offers the project’s outcomes: “The new design reduced task times by 68% and improved users’ subjective satisfaction by 139%.”

It’s immediate and impactful. Lola then takes us through the flow of the project, outlining the scale and scope of the work. She details the challenges, different iterations, and design, and clearly demonstrates the motivations behind decisions.

Lola rounds off her case study with a post-relaunch analysis, using concrete data to validate the final redesign: “With the original design, the set of tasks took 19 minutes. With the new design, the set of tasks took 6 minutes. Nearly 68%. Users’ subjective satisfaction with the new design (4.3/5) was 139% higher than the original design (1.8/5).”

What can we learn from Lola Jiang?

Lola does a great job of showing how she works in a business setting. This is crucial if you want to practice UX for a living, but it’s a trick that many designers tend to miss. While it’s true that you’re there to advocate for the user, it’s also important to recognize that companies have their own goals to meet—and you need to show how UX contributes to that.

If, like Lola, you can demonstrate how your work brings value, you’ll set yourself up for some serious bonus points. If you have data related to the project, this will be easy—but what if there aren’t any concrete metrics to showcase?

Even without data, you can frame your work in a business context. Set a business or product goal at the start of the case study. What do you hope your work will achieve? This is separate from the user goal, but the two should go hand in hand.

For example, creating a more pleasant app experience for the user should help to boost customer retention.

Likewise, establish a few success metrics before you begin. How will you measure the impact of your work? What tell-tale signs will you look out for after you’ve launched or relaunched the product? The best UX designers are those who can advocate for the user while meeting the needs of the business, so try to convey this throughout your portfolio.

Key takeaway

Use your portfolio to demonstrate how you add value to the business. Set business goals and success metrics for each case study, and, where possible, include data and tangible outcomes.

View Lola Jiang’s full portfolio website.

7. Daniel Autry features “just the right amount” of portfolio projects

Who is Daniel Autry?

Daniel Autry is a designer, developer, and behavioural researcher based in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is fascinated by the social product space and is currently researching the intersection between technology and mental illness.

What makes Daniel’s UX design portfolio so great?

Daniel Autry’s portfolio features some remarkable work in the mental health space, but that’s not the only reason he’s made it onto this list. Daniel’s portfolio also helps to answer that all-too-common conundrum: What’s the “right” amount of projects to showcase in your UX design portfolio?

Before we go any further, let’s be clear on one thing: There’s no “magic number” when it comes to portfolio projects. Some people will tell you five, others will say three—you might even hear that one is enough!

Daniel has opted to showcase four projects in his UX portfolio, and while we’re not saying that he’s found THE magic number, it is a magic number of sorts.

In other words, Daniel has found the number that works for him: He features just enough projects to showcase his range as a designer while still keeping it limited enough so as not to overwhelm the user—smart UX design in action!

In the space of just four featured case studies, we see that Daniel is a versatile designer who has worked on a variety of projects across a range of sectors—from mental health to financial trading to e-learning. So, it’s not just about how many projects you showcase; it’s just as important to pick a good variety.

Besides his four featured projects, Daniel’s portfolio also includes a section dedicated to “Other Works”. Here, he links to articles he’s written on Medium, additional projects he’s worked on, as well as upcoming endeavors.

This is a great way to divide your portfolio, especially if you’re struggling to decide which of your best work should feature!

What can we learn from Daniel Autry?

Daniel’s portfolio teaches us an important lesson about the “right” number of portfolio projects: There isn’t one! Every UX designer is unique, and your portfolio should reflect that.

Don’t get too hung up on whether you should include three projects or five; focus instead on selecting a handful of projects that best showcase who you are as a designer.

If you want to brand yourself as a versatile, adaptable designer, feature as diverse a variety of projects as possible.

If you see yourself as a specialist in a certain industry, highlight the projects that demonstrate this. At the same time, don’t overwhelm the viewer: a hiring manager looking through your portfolio probably won’t browse through ten UX case studies, so choose wisely!

Key takeaway

There is no hard-and-fast rule when it comes to how many projects you should feature in your portfolio. Choose a good enough variety to showcase your skillset, while keeping it minimal enough so as not to overwhelm the user. If you’ve got lots more work you want to showcase, add a separate section.

View Daniel Autry’s full portfolio website

8. Vera Chen highlights the importance of context

Who is Vera Chen?

Vera Chen is a product designer and former Facebook intern. She has a Master’s degree in Human-Centered Design and Engineering, and has also dabbled in singing and acting.

What makes Vera’s UX design portfolio so great?

Not only is Vera’s portfolio a beautiful thing to behold (just look at those illustrations!); it also highlights the importance of context when presenting your UX work.

Vera doesn’t just outline the problem statement for each case study—she steeps it in a solid back story, describing the events that led her there. She also clearly explains her role on each project, who she worked with, and what design and prototyping tools and methods they used.

Just by including these few extra details, Vera paints a clear picture of what the project entailed and how she contributed. Another excellent example of UX storytelling!

Let’s take Vera’s Wedding Library case study, for example. See how she dedicates two whole sections to setting the scene? First, there’s the project background which lays out the scope of the project. Then there’s the context section, a detailed story about newlyweds Murphy and Diana and the frustrations they faced when planning two weddings.

Vera doesn’t just tell us what the problem is. She shows us exactly how it came to light, and in what capacity she was employed to help solve it. By the time we scroll down to Vera’s process, it’s easy to see where each step fits into the overall project.

It’s a bit like reading a novel: you need a little bit of background before you can start relating to the characters and the plot.

What can we learn from Vera Chen?

There are two very simple yet effective takeaways to be had from Vera’s portfolio. First and foremost, provide plenty of background context—this works wonders when telling the story of each case study.

Vera doesn’t start with the problem statement; she sets the scene, describing the people, events, and circumstances that surround and lead up to this particular design challenge. Aim to precede your problem statement with a small paragraph dedicated to “setting the scene”.

Secondly, state your role on each project. What were you commissioned to do? Where did you fit into the overall team? At the same time, listing your teammates is a nice touch; UX design is a highly collaborative field, so it’s important to demonstrate individual value while acknowledging that the end result was a team effort!

Key takeaway

For each case study in your UX portfolio, provide as much context as you can. Set the scene with a brief backstory before launching into your problem statement. This includes stating your role on the project and, if necessary, who you worked with.

View Vera Chen’s full portfolio website

9. Zara Drei bedazzles with awesome UX and UI

Who is Zara Drei?

Zara Drei is a London-based UX designer. When she’s not solving problems with beautiful, user-centric web products, you can find her playing around with electronics, making video loops, building ceramic and metal sculptures, or producing electronic music.

What makes Zara’s UX design portfolio so great?

We’ve talked a lot about the importance of showcasing your UX design process. Now it’s time to contemplate the power of beautiful UI! This brings us to Zara Drei’s portfolio—the epitome of digital elegance.

Zara specializes in creating digital products and experiences for luxury, fashion, and beauty brands, and this is reflected in every detail of her portfolio.

In fact, scrolling through Zara’s portfolio is like wandering through the beauty department of a high-end store, or flipping through the pages of a glossy magazine—and that’s no accident.

She has given as much thought to her color palette, typography, and imagery as she has to writing up her case studies and sharing her process. The result? A flawless portfolio that truly makes its mark.

What can we learn from Zara Drei?

Your UX design portfolio is not just a website—it’s part of your personal brand. Like your case studies, the overall aesthetic of your portfolio should tell a story about who you are as a designer. Consider how Zara uses color and imagery to evoke a sense of luxury throughout her portfolio; how can you create a similar effect?

Spend some time figuring out your personal brand. Are you fun and quirky? Artsy and edgy? Corporate and serious? Perhaps you’re all about eco-friendly design.

Once you’ve got a theme in mind, you can start to think about the kinds of colors and imagery that will help to convey this. Just because you’re a UX designer doesn’t mean you can neglect the visual design of your portfolio.

Your portfolio should embody your personal brand, so treat it like any other UX project and give it the high-shine finish it deserves!

Key takeaway

Your portfolio website should reflect your personal brand, and visual design plays a crucial role. The best portfolios offer the full package—detailed case studies wrapped in stunning UI design and flawless UX—so aim to tick all the boxes!

View Zara Drei’s full portfolio website

10. Minimalism from Victoria Kazakova

Who is Victoria Kazakova?

Victoria Kazakova is a Polish UX designer, web developer, and photographer. 

What makes Victoria’s UX design portfolio so great?

In the enormous and sometimes confusing online world we trawl through daily, Victoria Kazakova’s UX portfolio wins the prize for clarity and ease of understanding. 

Throughout Victoria’s portfolio, she sticks to a minimalist design palette and clear signage, a simplicity that makes for a delightfully smooth read. 

Better still, words that spring up on command stroll through the portfolio, leading the reader from section to section. 

Charts and graphics displaying her skills and experience are so simple they appear iconic. There’s no chance the reader could feel lost or confused.  

What can we learn from Victoria Kazakova?

When it comes to graphic design, sometimes simplicity is best. The last thing you want to happen when someone reads over your portfolio is for them to feel overwhelmed with data.

Victoria’s portfolio is a great example of how responsive screens can ease the user’s journey through pages of information. 

Key takeaway

Don’t be tempted to overload. Stick to two classy fonts and an inoffensive colorway. These simple building blocks can lead the user’s eye as they navigate your work. 

View Victoria Kazakova’s full UX portfolio

11. Yu-Hsuan offers zero-gravity UX

Who is Yu-Hsuan?

Yu-Hsuan is a UX designer, currently working for Google as an interaction designer. 

What makes Yu-Hsuan’s UX design portfolio so great?

Yu-Hsuan’s impressive role at Google means that many of her current projects are “locked” due to non-disclosure agreements. This is a common problem in the UX design community and a hurdle many designers face when putting together their portfolios. 

Yu-Hsuan’s deft solution is to focus on the illustrative side of her UX portfolio, which showcases her passion and side projects as a graphic designer and game designer. 

She also uses her illustrations to depict the otherwise locked aspects of the projects she’s describing. This gives a lovely cohesion with the rest of the content in her portfolio and reduces the jarring effect locked projects can sometimes have. 

The floating designer illustration that seems to hover over the portfolio is very cool and points at a sense of fun and creativity necessary to succeed in illustration and gaming. 

What can we learn from Yu-Hsuan?

Through her illustrations, Yu-Hsuan has subtly displayed her UX skills in her portfolio itself. 

This visual approach means the separate parts of the portfolio hang together perfectly, even when some of the projects are locked off. 

Another tip from Yu-Hsuan is to be approachable in your portfolio. Dropping in the line “Please contact me if you want to go through the case study” gives a real sense of openness, collaboration, and sharing. 

Key takeaway

If you can’t show direct evidence of a project, don’t hesitate to get creative. A strong visual style not only shows off your design chops but helps a large portfolio hang together nicely. Also, be approachable!

View Yu-Hsuan’s full UX portfolio

12. A holistic introduction to Cristina Gafitescu

Who is Cristina Gafitescu?

Romania-based Cristina Gafitescu is a junior UX designer with a playful approach to visual design.

What makes Cristina Gafitescu’s UX design portfolio so great?

Cristina’s UX portfolio makes a great first impression as it tells her story in an interesting-to-follow, visually engaging way. 

Her playful page layouts and graphics show Cristina’s panache as an illustrator and designer. They also provide a great backdrop as she offers a holistic introduction to herself. 

Through a post-it note, almost diaristic approach, the reader really gets a feel for what kind of person Cristina is, her education and experience, and what attracted her to UX in the first place. 

That’s not to say this portfolio is totally informal. Cristina also does a great job of showing her processes, identifying problems (with a focus on UX research), solutions, and testing. 

Key takeaway

When the temptation may be to opt for oblique, abstract graphics that display your design chops in the coolest terms, save a thought for a more intimate approach. 

Cristina’s portfolio is emotionally honest, charming, and informative. The effect on recruiters—especially those suffering from portfolio fatigue—is likely persuasive. 

View Cristina Gafitescu’s full UX portfolio

13. The spatial awareness of Rucha Moghe

Who is Rucha Moghe?

Rucha Moghe is a UX designer with a background in architecture based in India. 

What makes Rucha Moghe’s UX design portfolio so great?

From start to finish, Rucha’s UX portfolio ticks all the right boxes. It’s visually strong and easy to digest. Her user journey map is smart and in context, and the user flows, wireframes, and usability study are all useful.    

Tehni: A Plant App is an especially great case study and easy to follow. On the whole, Rucha’s portfolio is incredibly strong on user personas. 

As Rucha suggests, her background as an architect provides her portfolio with a great sense of user-centered design principles, spatial awareness, and problem-solving skills transferable to digital spaces. 

No space feels wasted, nothing is jumbled, and the reader never feels lost or confused. This is architectural elegance in portfolio form. 

Key takeaway

Reinventing the wheel in your portfolio isn’t necessarily a good idea. Rucha’s portfolio nails the basics: it’s logical with an easy-to-follow narrative that shows how user problems were solved. It’s bold and eye-catching and features great user personas.

View Rucha Moghe’s full UX portfolio 

14. Nguyen Duc Thang’s deep case studies

Who is Nguyen Duc Thang?

Nguyen Duc Thang is a UX designer based in Hanoi, Vietnam. Although just starting in his career, Nguyen Duc Thang knows how to put together a really strong portfolio. 

What makes Nguyen Duc Thang’s UX design portfolio so great?

Much like Rucha Moghe, Nguyen Duc Thang’s UX portfolio gets the basics right despite the difference in experience. 

Nguyen Duc Thang’s branding is particularly strong, with eye-catching graphics consistently holding the content together throughout the document. 

After introducing himself, Nguyen Duc Thang covers his skills and qualifications before launching into extensive case studies. No stone is left unturned in these exhaustive examples, which detail wireframing, prototyping, testing, user personas, visual design, and information architecture. Bravo! 

Key takeaway

Don’t scrimp on your case studies. Tell the world how you nailed that project, from top to tail.

View Nguyen Duc Thang’s full UX portfolio

15. Precocious design from Gilbert Christian

Who is Gilbert Christian?

Gilbert Christian is an Indonesian UX design student in the early stages of his career. As Gilbert mentions in his portfolio, he’s open to all manner of part-time, voluntary work, or UX internship programs. 

What makes Gilbert Christian’s UX design portfolio so great?

Despite his relative inexperience, Gilbert’s UX portfolio is extremely easy on the eye, with strong data visualization and imagery leading you from one page to the next.   

Gilbert’s case studies show a maturity beyond his experience, with thorough documentation giving us insight into his work processes. 

Gilbert’s portfolio is stunning and applies the same key UX design principles present in his work. 

Key takeaway

If in doubt, build a logical narrative showing how a problem was understood, defined, and solved. 

View Gilbert Christian’s full UX portfolio

16. Valentina Gigli’s bold branding

Who is Valentina Gigli?

Valentina Gigli is a junior UX designer based in Argentina.  

What makes Valentina Gigli’s UX design portfolio so great?

Aside from the bold color scheme and font choice, Valentina keeps things simple with her portfolio. 

After introducing herself, Valentina discusses her “aptitude palette”, before moving on to her design examples. 

Whether you’re a fan of purplish magenta or not, the bold titles and lurid colors certainly make for clear signposting and remain in the mind’s eye for some time after looking away, a key sign of successful branding. 

Key takeaway

When it comes to color schemes and fonts, it’s tempting to play it safe. Taking some risks may mean your portfolio pops out from the crowd.

View Valentina Gigli’s full UX portfolio

17. Aleyna Aykanat raises a smile

Who is Aleyna Aykanat?

Akeyna Aykanat is a Turkish UX designer with skills in public speaking, 3D product modeling, and graphic design.

What makes Aleyna Aykanat’s UX design portfolio so great?

Aleyna’s work is in monochrome black and white, with grainy charcoal textures offering depth to each slide. 

The result feels mature and assured—and Aleyna has the content to match it, too. 

After what feels like a serious offering, Aleyna offers something of a UX visual joke at the end of her portfolio, including a fake loading page, before bidding us farewell. 

Overall, it leaves one with the impression of Aleyna as a fun-loving lateral thinker—just the kind of person we’d like on our team. 

Key takeaway

Many UX design portfolios are made using guidelines shared amongst tens of thousands of junior designers at bootcamps and other learning establishments. 

These cookie-cutter portfolios can feel a little soulless and may result in recruiters developing a kind of portfolio fatigue. 

As Aleyna shows so elegantly, including a curveball element—in this case, the joke towards the end of her portfolio—shows the portfolio has been assembled with care and craft, not painted by numbers.  

View Aleyna Aykanat’s full UX portfolio

18. Sharon Kravanja’s scrapbook stylings

Who is Sharon Kravanja?

Sharon Kravanja is a Parisian UX designer at the beginning of her career.

What makes Sharon Kravanja’s UX design portfolio so great?

From the outset, Sharon makes no bones about her very junior status as a UX designer. This is reflected in her opening statement and the primitive doodles that annotate and decorate each portfolio page. 

Despite this seemingly youthful approach, Sharon’s visual scrapbook style demonstrates impressive self-branding. Scribbles and sweeps bring cohesion to all the moving parts of the portfolio while playfully communicating Sharon’s self-awareness as an inexperienced but sincere and brave designer. 

Key takeaway

Be yourself. A recruiter will sooner remember Sharon’s somewhat youthfully exuberant portfolio over safer designs.

View Sharon Kravanja’s full UX portfolio

19. Sophisticated graphics from Anna Hlushko

Who is Anna Hlushko?

Anna Hlushko is a Ukrainian UX designer with a self-professed focus on minimalism. 

What makes Anna Hlushko’s UX design portfolio so great?

Anna Hlushko’s portfolio speaks of a detail-oriented UX designer with serious design chops. 

Modernist typography and dark, grainy hues glue the elements of this portfolio in place. Anna’s graphic design skills are at the higher end of the spectrum, and these pages wouldn’t look out of place in a MoMA brochure.

Beyond the slick exterior, Anna also touches on her approach to tackling stages of work, including research, and details some case studies. 

Key takeaway

Play to your strengths. If visual design is your thing, make sure your portfolio pops. This may be the one chance you have to show off your chops. 

View Anna Hlushko’s full UX portfolio

20. Thorough research by Hoàng Kỳ Phong

Who is Hoàng Kỳ Phong?

Hoàng Kỳ Phong is a Hanoi-based UX designer passionate about art and design. 

What makes Hoàng Kỳ Phong’s UX design portfolio so great?

With black and white images projected onto a backdrop of cartridge paper, Hoàng Kỳ Phong’s portfolio has a classic feel. 

Structurally, it is a masterclass in logical layout and digestible design. Extra marks are awarded for detailed market research and survey information. 

Key takeaway

Consider the user at every step by demonstrating the process and results.

View Hoàng Kỳ Phong’s UX portfolio

Why do you need a UX design portfolio?

When creating an impressive UX portfolio, it’s important to understand exactly what your portfolio should achieve. What information should your portfolio present? What do you want people to learn about you and your work when they land on your portfolio?

Your UX design portfolio is not just a virtual gallery of all your most beautiful work. It’s a carefully crafted story that offers a behind-the-scenes look at your methods and processes.

How do you tackle different UX design challenges? What’s your approach to solving problems? Are you user-centric?

It should introduce you as a designer and give the viewer an understanding of your work. And, of course, all of these insights should come gift-wrapped in a visually engaging, user-friendly package.

How to build an amazing UX portfolio

Since a portfolio is all about showcasing your work as a designer, it’s obvious that you need to get some experience so that you have work to spotlight in the first place.

But what if you don’t have any industry experience (yet)? Not to worry.

It’s entirely possibly to build a strong portfolio, break into the industry, and succeed without previous UX design experience. One great place to start is by taking a free UX design short course to make sure you’re cut out for this area of the design field.

Next, you can then to enroll in a UX design certification program—preferably one that provides personalized UX mentorship and portfolio reviews.

To see a live portfolio review with a seasoned UX designer, check out this video:

Beyond this, you want to make sure that your portfolio meets these criteria:

1. 1. 1. Includes a memorable introduction
      2. Consists of just the right number of high-quality UX case studies
      3. Demonstrates reflexivity—shows your ability to reflect and learn
      4. User-friendly format (practice what you preach)
      5. Excellent UI design—shows you know what a good, polished final product looks like

To learn more about these five criteria (and how to meet them), read more in this guide: Five Golden Rules to Build a Job-Winning UX Design Portfolio.

Where else can you look for UX design portfolio inspiration?

That just about concludes our selection of awesome UX design portfolios from around the web. We hope this list has given you a feel for some of the most important UX design portfolio best practices and left you feeling suitably inspired.

For more portfolio inspiration, check out websites like Bestfolios, Behance, and Dribbble. For further tips and advice on building your own UX design portfolio, check out these articles:

1. 1. • 9 Awesome Portfolios From UX Design Bootcamp Graduates
      • How I Designed And Built My UX Design Portfolio From Scratch
      • 9 Free Websites for Building You UX/UI Portfolio

And finally, if you’re a UX designer looking to specialize, we’ve also written guides to build portfolios for UX writing and UX research. If you spot any further examples of great portfolios while navigating the web, do let us know so we can add them to the list.

Want to keep exploring UX design? Here are a few other articles you might like:

1. 1. • How to become a UX designer in under one year
      • Do you need a degree to become a UX designer?
      • 7 best practices to help keep your UX skillset in shape

And if you’re on the hunt for even more UX design inspiration, here are 15 quotes from design masters.

Frequently asked portfolio (FAQ) about UX portfolios

What should be in a UX portfolio?

A UX portfolio should showcase your expertise, understanding, and passion for UX. A portfolio can include elements like case studies, design, personal projects, examples of your process, and should be presented in a visually pleasing way.

How do I start a UX portfolio for beginners?

A beginner’s UX portfolio is a vital tool for entering the industry. Highlight your passion and motivation for the UX design, include your personal approaches, and if you have minimal case studies to present, include personal projects. 

How do I build my UX portfolio?

With the amount of free templates available online, building your UX portfolio has never been easier. However, it’s important to not limit yourself to a standardized approach and showcase your own unique talent. 

First and foremost, choose your projects and case studies carefully. Then present them in a logical narrative that tells a story about your design process. In your descriptions, highlight your motivations and thought processes.

Across your portfolio, focus on showcasing your design skills and problem-solving abilities, and keep your portfolio up-to-date with your latest work. Be sure to customize your portfolio for the audience.

The city boasts a thriving tech scene, which, combined with Berlin’s diverse and multicultural environment, contributes to a rich and diverse pool of perspectives and creative influences in the field of UX design.

Berlin hosts various conferences, workshops, and events on user experience and interaction design. It’s become home to numerous design agencies, startups, and digital innovation hubs, creating a vibrant ecosystem for UX designers with exciting agencies. 

The natural next question, then, is: what is the UX designer salary in Berlin?

In this article, we’ll look at Berlin’s UX job market and salary expectations. 

1. What is the UX designer salary in Berlin? 
2. UX designer salary in Berlin by experience
   1. Junior UX designer salary
   2. Mid-level UX designer salary
   3. Senior UX designer salary
3. Other UX-related role salaries in Berlin
4. UX designer salary in Berlin by company
5. Key takeaways

1. What is the UX designer salary in Berlin?

UX designer salary Berlin: €53,945

Berlin’s hive of UX activity means some pretty competitive salaries are on offer. 

According to Glassdoor, the typical UX designer salary that Berlin offers is in the range of €47,000 to €66,000 per year. 

This figure varies depending on experience, company, and specialization: which we’ll now dive into! All figures listed in this article are taken from Glassdoor. 

2. UX designer salary in Berlin by experience

Experience is a key influence on salary in any job market, and Berlin is no different. 

What is more unique to Berlin is its thriving UX design startup culture, which can positively impact the salary for less-experienced UXers.

Budding UX designers may be able to reach senior positions more quickly at these modest-sized companies, but generally, salaries are lower than at tech giants.

Here’s a breakdown of UX designer salaries in Berlin based on experience levels.

Junior UX designer: 0–2 years of experience

With less experience, junior UX designers in Berlin are expected to support senior team members, contribute to design projects, and develop their skills.

• Average salary: €44,000 per year
• Additional pay: €2,000 per year

Mid-Level UX designer: 2–5 years of experience

At this stage, designers in most Berlin agencies are typically involved in more complex projects, take on more responsibility, and have a solid understanding of UX design principles and processes.

• Average salary: €54,000 per year
• Additional pay: €3,000 per year 

Senior UX designer: 5+ years of experience

Senior designers in Berlin often lead design teams, drive strategic decision-making, and have extensive experience in UX research, interaction design, and usability testing.

• Average salary: €64,000 to €88,000 per year
• Additional pay: €9,000 per year

3. Other UX-related role salaries in Berlin

But what about other non-design roles in Berlin’s UX jobs market? Let’s take a look at some salaries.

UX writer salaries

Junior UX writer: 0–2 years of experience

• Salary: €35,000 to €50,000 per year

Mid-Level UX writer: 2–5 years of experience

• Salary: €50,000 to €70,000 per year

Senior UX writer: 5+ years of experience

• Salary: €70,000 to €90,000 per year 

UX researcher salaries

Junior UX researcher: 0–2 years of experience

• Salary: €35,000 to €50,000 per year

Mid-Level UX researcher: 2–5 years of experience

• Salary: €50,000 to €70,000 per year

Senior UX researcher: 5+ years of experience

• Salary: €70,000 to €90,000 per year

UX strategist salaries

Junior UX strategist: 0–2 years of experience

• Salary: €35,000 to €50,000 per year

Mid-level UX strategis:t 2–5 years of experience

• Salary: €50,000 to €70,000 per year

Senior UX strategist: 5+ years of experience

• Salary: €70,000 to €90,000 per year

4. UX designer salary in Berlin by company

UX designers are sought after by a wide array of companies in Berlin, including tech startups, e-commerce platforms, digital agencies, financial institutions, and healthcare firms. 

These companies employ varying numbers of UX designers, with larger firms often having dedicated teams, while smaller ones might have individual designers handling user experience.

Some of the notable UX design firms in Berlin include:

• IXDS
• Fjord
• USEEDS°
• Studio GOOD
• Edenspiekermann
• SinnerSchrader
• Aperto
• UID
• T-Labs UX/UI Design
• Designit

Here’s a breakdown of UX designer salaries in Berlin based on different types of companies, along with some example companies in each category:

Startups and small companies

Berlin is known for its startup culture. Startups and small companies in Berlin offer relatively lower salaries than larger organizations, but often have other benefits such as remote working options.

• Salaries: €35,000 to €60,000 
• Companies include: N26, EyeEm, Zenjob, Blinkist, Orderbird

Mid-sized companies

Mid-sized companies in Berlin generally offer more competitive salaries for UX designers, but are (generally) considered less loyal to their employees.

• Salaries: €45,000 to €75,000
• Companies include: Zalando, FlixBus, Delivery Hero, AUTO1 Group, Contentful

Large corporations and tech giants

Established corporations and renowned tech giants operating in Berlin typically offer higher salaries to attract top talent, but the work culture and practices tend to be more traditional.

• Salaries: €60,000 to €100,000 
• Companies include: Siemens, Volkswagen, SAP, Deutsche Telekom, Axel Springer

5. Key takeaways

Berlin is a buzzing hub of UX design. The city is home to many talented UX professionals and specialized companies in the field of UX design: A creative playground offering an exciting mix of opportunities for UX designers.

Here are the key takeaways from this article:

• If you’re a Berliner just starting in UX, you can expect to earn between €40,000 and €46,000 per year. 
• As you climb the experience ladder and become a mid-level designer (2-5 years of experience), your salary can range from €47,000 to €66,000 per year. 
• And if you’re a seasoned senior UX designer with 5 or more years of experience, brace yourself for salaries ranging from €64,000 to €88,000 per year or even more.

If you’re interested in getting some insight into the day-to-day of a UX designer, berlin-based UX professional Maureen Herben describes a typical day in this video.

Whether you’re just starting out or want to take your career to the next level, Berlin has a lot to offer you.

If you’re considering a career in UX design in Berlin, try our free UX design short course.  The full UX design program is also available for free if you’re registered as unemployed in Germany, through the Bildungsgutschein.

Did you enjoy this article? You might like these:

• The 11 Best UX Design Courses in 2023
• New in Germany? The Expats in Germany 2023 Guide
• Here’s How to Become a UX Designer in 2023

First, there are simply too many parts of a UX designer’s role that AI isn’t even close to understanding or performing for it to be either a realistic option or a sensible strategy right now.

Second, UX design is about designing for humans. Naturally, to design for humans you have to understand humans, and this is something AI is not capable of in any meaningful way.

There’s a but, though, and it’s a big one. There are some things that a UX designer does that AI can replicate to some extent.

And when you throw into the mix the fact that some companies are always looking for ways to cut costs and the fact that the capabilities of AI are advancing at breakneck speed, you can see why some people imagine a future in which the craft of UX design is under pressure from AI. But the evidence really does not support that conclusion, thankfully. 

We’ve written this blog—without the assistance of ChatGPT—to give you an overview of the impact of AI on UX design.

We’ll first investigate whether AI can replace UX design. We’ll do this by going through the broader responsibilities of UX designers one by one and seeing whether they can be AI-automated.

Then we’ll look at three ways you can use AI to your advantage as a UX designer and take a wider look at the future relationship between UX and AI.

Finally, we’ll wrap things up with some key takeaways.

As always, if you want to skip ahead to a certain section, use this clickable menu:

1. The impact of AI on UX design
2. Can AI replace UX designers?
   • Can AI carry out competitor research as well as a UX designer?
3. How to use AI in UX design
4. What is the future of AI in UX?
5. A closing thought

1. The impact of AI on UX design

There’s been a lot of noise about the impact of AI on UX design.

One thing we do know is that UX designers are involved in building AI. Meta is currently hiring for their Generative AI team and until fairly recently Open AI was looking for product designers.

But to what extent is AI involved in the UX design process? What AI tools are we talking about? 

There are already hundreds of AI tools out there that could potentially help with UX design, but let’s quickly summarize seven of the main ones:

• ChatGPT: Generates conversational outputs, research, copy, and more based on your prompts.
• UIzard: Scans your sketches and turns them into editable, testable digital designs.
• Copy.ai: Creates different types of copy based on being prompted with the brand, product name, and description.
• Jasper.ai: Generates custom copy so you can avoid lorem ipsum, similar to copy.ai in some ways.
• Fontjoy: Speeds up the process of font pairing.
• Khroma: Creates infinite color palettes according to your prompts.
• Midjourney: Generates images from natural language descriptions (prompts), and can also be used for generating icons, mood boards, and more.
  

Check out our full guide to the best AI tools for UX design here.

In this blog, we’re going to focus on the impact ChatGPT and its design plugin, FigmaAI, have had on UX design. In the next section, we’ll explore whether AI can replace UX designers, by diving into what ChatGPT and its FigmaAI plugin can and can’t do.

(For a balanced overview of AI’s impact on tech more broadly, our blog Big Tech Layoffs 2023: Are Tech Jobs Secure? is a great place to start.) 

2. Can AI replace UX designers?

A lot of UX design is about empathy of course, but we can look at it in an even more basic way—a lot of UX design is about talking.

So, to answer the question of whether AI can replace UX designers, let’s experiment with another question:

Can UX designers do their job without talking to people?

Or, we can be more specific:

Q: What parts of a UX designer’s job involve talking to people—either in-person, remotely, or via email or some other form of communication (email, Slack, JIRA, Asana, etc)? 

A: A lot, is the simpler answer. Those of you who are UX designers, who are on your way to becoming one, or who work closely with them will already know this, of course.

But let’s break it down and answer the question in a formulaic way. This table shows 15 duties that a UX designer would typically carry out—over a period of a few months, let’s say—and how often or not they involve talking to people (with options of: Always, Often, Sometimes, Rarely, Never): 

Duty: Collaborate with UX research to create user personas
Does it involve talking to people? Always
Can it be replaced by AI? No

Duty: Collaborate with UX research to understand pain points
Does it involve talking to people? Always
Can it be replaced by AI? No

Duty: Run a simple internal user test or a wider external one
Does it involve talking to people? Always
Can it be replaced by AI? No

Duty: Understand which UI components fit which context
Does it involve talking to people? Often
Can it be replaced by AI? No

Duty: Build prototypes in Figma (or a similar platform)
Does it involve talking to people? Often
Can it be replaced by AI? No

Duty: Ask PM or engineers for clarification on requirements
Does it involve talking to people? Always
Can it be replaced by AI? No

Duty: Join in a design crit, either as a moderator, presenter, or critiquer
Does it involve talking to people? Always
Can it be replaced by AI? No

Duty: Plan a sprint
Does it involve talking to people? Always
Can it be replaced by AI? No

Duty: Prioritize tasks
Does it involve talking to people? Always
Can it be replaced by AI? No

Duty: Run or participate in a design sprint
Does it involve talking to people? Always
Can it be replaced by AI? No

Duty: Present and explain work and process in a sprint review
Does it involve talking to people? Always
Can it be replaced by AI? No

Duty: Present work and explain thinking behind decisions to stakeholders
Does it involve talking to people? Always
Can it be replaced by AI? No

Duty: Do competitor research
Does it involve talking to people? Rarely
Can it be replaced by AI? No

Duty: Create implementation guidelines or documentation
Does it involve talking to people? Often
Can it be replaced by AI? No, although ChatGPT could help to an extent in the writing process

As you can see from this table, 13 of these 14 tasks that a UX designer would typically have to perform involve regularly talking to people, and only one—doing competitor research—doesn’t. 

It might sound simplistic, but until AI can engage in conversation like an intelligent human—asking and answering questions, actively listening, showing empathy, understanding connotation and subtext—it can’t really do any of the things a UX designer does.

Because AI can’t do anything that involves conversing with other people, it can’t do UX design—or any other job that requires interpersonal communication.

But, before we move on, let’s quickly look at a real and current job description at Meta for a Product Designer in their Reality Labs. Could AI perform any of the responsibilities their Product Design will be expected to carry out?   

Product Designer: Reality Labs at Meta

Responsibility: Take broad, conceptual ideas and turn them into something useful and valuable for people using our products
Can this be done by AI? No

Responsibility: Work collaboratively with Product, Research, Engineering, and other partners from concept to completion
Can this be done by AI? No

Responsibility: Drive planning, strategy, and vision on key priorities across cross-functional teams
Can this be done by AI? No

Responsibility: Own the end-to-end design (user flows, interaction, visual, etc.) across multiple products and projects
Can this be done by AI? No

Responsibility: Present designs, prototypes, and concepts to cross-functional partners and stakeholders
Can this be done by AI? No

Responsibility: Provide implementation guidance to engineers and ensure features launch at the highest quality
Can this be done by AI? No

Responsibility: Clearly articulate design decisions to a vast set of internal stakeholders across Reality Labs and Meta
Can this be done by AI? No

This example again shows just how far AI is from replacing UX or Product Designers. All of the key responsibilities can only be carried out by an actual human. 

But, circling back to the first table which included 15 UX designer responsibilities, there was one—carrying out competitor research (if not understanding or gaining insights from it)–that is doable without talking to people.

Is this something that AI can replace UX designers doing? Or at least something UX designers can delegate to AI?

Can AI carry out competitor research as well as a UX designer?

When it comes to carrying out competitor research, the one duty that may be achievable without talking to people, ChatGPT is an AI that could be somewhat helpful.

Even though it wouldn’t be able to carry out research to guide or influence your own design decisions, it could possibly help with identifying competitors (although as a UX designer, you’d expect to already be familiar with the competitors) and creating basic written summaries of their key user journeys. 

Let’s see what happened when we asked it to do just that. 

We played the role of a UX designer at Headspace (or a similar meditation app) and tried to conduct some basic competitor research.

First, we asked ChatGPT to describe Aura’s user journey for canceling a subscription and this is what we got back:

ChatGPT struggles to give anything beyond a basic, vague description of a user journey.

ChatGPT begins its output with:

“Please note that as an AI language model, I can provide a generalized user journey for canceling a subscription with Aura, but specific steps and processes may vary.”

And, true to its word, it quickly becomes apparent that the ChatGPT-generated user journey is not from Aura, but rather a summary of data/content on common journeys for canceling a subscription.

As you can see ChatGPT is unable to determine if Aura has an “Account” or “Profile” option (step 2), or a “Subscription” or “Billing” tab (step 3). 

It also includes a lot of conditional verbs, such as “may” (step 5), “might” (step 6), and “should” (step 7), to emphasize that this is a hypothetical user journey, not an actual one.

Because this is a hypothetical and vague description of the user journey, it would be worthless as competitor research for a UX designer.

Even so, we wanted to see if ChatGPT could identify potential pain points in Aura’s cancel a subscription user journey: 

ChatGPT can’t describe pain points users may encounter in Aura’s cancel a subscription user journey

Similar to its output for the previous prompt, ChatGPT is unable to give anything beyond vague, hypothetical pain points for canceling a subscription user journey.

Again its output is punctuated with “if”s and “might”s, which renders it totally unusable for the purposes of competitor research.

For competitor research to influence, guide, or inform UX design—whether that’s on what to do or what not to do—it needs to be clearly visualized and include at least some attempt to uncover the deeper thinking and highlight what would be more and less likely to work.

ChatGPT is simply not able to do that at this stage in its development.

So, if AI can’t help us with competitor research, what parts of UX design can it actually do?

Next, we’ll look at a couple of examples of how you might actually be able to use AI to support UX design. 

(If you’re looking for an analysis of AI’s impact on Web Development, AI and Web Development: A Coder’s Perspective in 2023 is a great starting point.) 

3. How to use AI in UX design

We started here by looking at the functionality of Chat GPT’s FigmaAI to see what the plug-in for the UX designer’s best buddy could offer.

Right now, the main things FigmaAI can help with are creating and then styling and/or editing multiple images and creating texts.

Creating and styling an image

Instead of having to source images from libraries and other means yourself you can automate and use FigmaAI to speed up the process, if not fully automate it.

There’s a three-step process to do so:

1. Enter a basic prompt of what you want to see (“A view of a city at night from above” is the example used in the website demo of FigmaAI.
2. Choose a style if you want one (the options are Realistic, Draw, Artistic, Picture, and Abstract)
3. Generate the image and then edit it and generate more until you have what you need

FigmaAI, ChatGPT’s Figma plugin, can generate and edit multiple images within the UI

By using FigmaAI to generate and edit images you might save quite a bit of time compared with sourcing them and editing them yourself, although it remains to be seen if the quality is always up to the same level.

Creating text for your design

FigmaAI promises to “Create better text for you design” (ignoring the typo in the headline, not a great look for an AI text generator), again following a straightforward three-step process:

1. Enter a basic prompt of what you want the text to say (“Headline for a sustainability-focused travel landing page” is their example).
2. Select the level of creativity and formality you want for the tone of the text.
3. Generate the text and then use prompts to change the length or tone.

FigmaAI can generate, translate, and edit texts of varying quality 

The headline it generated “Experience the World While Making a Positive Impact on the Environment”, while bland and sounding exactly like you’d expect from an AI text generator, is probably just about ok as a starting point for the actual headline.

With some tweaking here and there it could turn into something strong enough to be user-facing. The question then would be whether writing the prompt was actually quicker than drafting a headline of the same quality. 

That would—of course—depend on the writing abilities of the UX designer, but it’s clear this tool will add value for some UX designers, especially those who don’t have UX writing support or are writing in their second or third language.

For some more perspective, we decided to see what ChatGPT offered us for the headline with a very similar prompt, “Create three headline options for a sustainability-focused travel landing page.”

ChatGPT offers better headlines than FigmaAI with the same prompt

Interestingly, although not perfect, the three options ChatGPT generated were all stronger and more natural sounding than FigmaAI’s effort. Here’s what it churned out:

1. “Embark on an Eco-Adventure: Discover Sustainable Travel Experiences”
2. “Explore the World Responsibly: Unforgettable Journeys with a Sustainable Twist”
3. “Travel with Purpose: Embrace Sustainable Tourism for a Greener Planet”

This suggests that—for now at least—ChatGPT might be more useful to UX designers who are looking for AI support with creating texts.

In this video, product design professional Maureen Herben looks at some more ways AI can be applied in UX:

Now that we’ve looked at a few examples of how you can use AI in UX design, let’s think about the future of AI in UX. 

4. What is the future of AI in UX?

Sticking with ChatGPT, although it’s not able to help in any meaningful way with carrying out user research or competitor research, it is able to make the text more concise at the same time as removing typos and grammatical errors.

This could open the door for UX designers to use it for a few more things:

1. Editing and improving documentation or implementation guidelines.
2. Editing and improving content for presentations (but it would have to be inputted in text format, rather than on slides or similar).  
3. Creating basic marketing content.

And it’s easy to imagine that as ChatGPT evolves, it would eventually be able to do these three things at higher and higher levels. (The same applies to the FigmaAI capabilities we looked through earlier.)

It is also useful to an extent for generating ideas. Let’s imagine we’re a UX designer creating an app to rate and review independent coffee shops in Berlin and we prompt ChatGPT with: 

“I’m creating an app to rate and review independent coffee shops in Berlin. What features would my users expect to find in my app?”

Here’s what we get back as output:

And so on. Although these are all very basic ideas that most UX designers would already know and the rest would be able to Google in a few minutes, the list could still be at least somewhat useful as a starting point.

What might be more interesting would be if as the same UX designer we were involved in the app naming process and asked ChatGPT for ideas:

The 10 name suggestions we get back from ChatGPT range from the odd (JoeReview) to the pretty good (BrewBerlin, BeanScout, BrewReview).

And maybe that gives us the clearest indication of what the future of AI in UX is. Although AI won’t be able to replace UX designers in the foreseeable future, it can be a useful tool to help them with idea generation, writing, editing, and naming.

Combined with the other tools we touched on in the first section, becoming UX designers who are familiar and confident with these tools can start to give themselves an advantage. 

5. A closing thought

There’s a quote about the nature of UX design, from Erica Ellis, Sr Manager, Head of Product Equity Design at Uber:

“We are in the business of solving problems to meet the needs of the people who are going to use our product. That’s the driving force in everything we do. The people. We design for people… Every decision must serve a greater purpose. We create products that people can and want to use — products that will make their lives easier, and better. To create that experience, to design for people, that is what I do.” (We’ve added the bolding.)

To design for people you need to understand people, and to understand people in any meaningful way you need to talk to them and you need to listen to them.

A world in which AI can do this is a long way off.

To find out more about the working world of UX design, try our free UX design short course. 

And be sure to check out the top 15 ChatGPT prompts for UX design.

If you found this article interesting, then you’ll likely enjoy these:

• Here’s How to Become a UX Designer in 2023
• The Impact of AI on UI design
• What Does AI Mean for Digital Marketing?

Having the right prototyping tool is key—but how do you find the one that’s right for the way you work or the demands of a particular project?

Some prototyping tools are designed to support early user testing and a basic demonstration of user flows. Others are full-stack which allow you to design your prototypes or wireframes,  simulate realistic and rich user interactions, collaborate with your team, and generate code that is ready to hand off to developers.

Which tool you’ll select will depend on the goals of your prototype, how quickly you need it available for user testing, who will be working on it, and how it needs to integrate into your workflow.

So many things to consider! That’s why we’ve created this list of our top 10 prototyping tools for UX designers—to help you decide which one is best for you, your team, or your next project.

For each tool we’ll cover the cost (USD), system requirements, how easy it is to get up and running, what it’s like actually to use the tool, and the final product. Let’s get into it!

1. Sketch
2. Figma
3. InVision
4. Balsamiq
5. UXPin
6. Flinto
7. Origami
8. Framer
9. Axure
10. Webflow

1. Sketch

Sketch was built with the designer in mind and supports you in creating vector-based designs and quickly viewing them as a clickable prototype.

Price

• $99 per year for a one-time license which you can use for a year with free updates, and after that if you would like to renew your license to receive further updates its $79 per year.

Ease of learning

Sketch is a beginner friendly application—and it may sound cliche—but its interface is really intuitive. The prototyping features available for your Sketch designs are pretty basic, as you can see from the highlighted portion of the panel above. This video offers an introductory tutorial to Sketch.

System requirements

• Available only on MacOS

Collaboration capabilities

• Share your prototype with others simply with a link they can view in their browser
• Sketch has its own cloud storage system which you can grant your team full access to
• Developers can view your designs in a browser, inspect elements, and export assets for free

Where Sketch belongs in your toolkit

Sketch definitely isn’t the first program people think of when it comes to prototyping, and while it’s a dream to design wireframes, it really shines as a companion to other prototyping tools.

Deliverables

Your Sketch prototype will be clickable and simple. It has fewer transition customizations than InVision, but they all similarly show how your screens flow with one another. Finally, you can view your prototype on your desktop browser or with the Mirror (iOS) app directly on your mobile device.

2. Figma

Figma is another full-stack design tool that has really sophisticated collaboration to support the design process from wireframing and prototyping all the way to developer handoff.

Price

• Free for two editors and three projects
• $12/month (on yearly plan) for unlimited projects and editors

Ease of learning

With a familiar looking interface, Figma is known to be an easy tool for designers to pick up and figure out—especially if you‘ve used Sketch before. There is no coding knowledge required to add interactivity to your designs in Figma.

System requirements

• Available on the web, MacOS, or Windows

Deliverables

Figma prototypes are basic and will present similar to the other click-through mid-fidelity prototypes we’ve discussed so far.

Collaboration capabilities

With real-time editing capabilities that mirror a multi-editor Google doc experience—your team will love working together with Figma.

The UX of Figma

Figma has all of the essential design tools you’d want from Sketch, and is equally intuitive to use. It’s easy to stitch wireframes into your prototype so you don’t need to worry about importing your designs as you continue your design process in a single tool.

3. InVision

Over the past decade, InVision has become a staple of designers worldwide. This comprehensive design and prototyping web-based app facilitates the end-to-end design process, from creating initial designs to interactive prototypes and collaborative sharing. 

Price

Invision is free to use with one active prototype. After that, they offer different plans starting at $15 a month.

Ease of learning

One of InVision’s strengths is its straightforward, intuitive interface. It’s easy to get going on, is user-friendly, and offers a wealth of tutorials and resources to help users master the more complex features.

System requirements

• Cloud-based web tool that works from your browser

Collaboration capabilities

InVision is known for its strong emphasis on collaboration. Designers can share prototypes with team members, stakeholders, and clients and gather feedback through comments and annotations directly on the designs. With its user testing and remote usability study capabilities, it’s also a valuable tool for teams that need to gather user insights.

What it’s like to use

It’s easy to see why InVision has become a staple of designers worldwide. 

A lot’s already been said about its collaborative functionality, and for good reason. The prototyping capabilities are robust. It’s easy to add interactive elements, animations and transitions to your designs, making them feel more like real user experiences. The click-and-drag capabilities and intuitive interface make it easy to get going on relatively complex stuff, and the tutorials are super clear for anything you don’t grasp. 

All-in-all, using InVision is a pleasure, and the results speak for themselves.

4. Balsamiq

Balsamiq is a rapid wireframing and prototyping tool that allows you to link your screens together to demonstrate simple user flows.

Price

• $9 per month for two projects at a time
• $49 per month for up to 20 projects

Ease of learning

Balsamiq is simple to use and produces a product you would show your team early on to refine your user flows and content strategy—this tool will help you to layout your app and collect feedback before the designs go through any iterations.

System requirements

• Available as a web app for any browser
• Desktop app compatible with MacOS and Windows

Deliverables

These prototypes are a step above low-fidelity, as look like a digitized-paper prototype. Linking elements in a wireframe here works as a simple clickable prototype, with the only action available being a transition to another screen (no overlay, animations, or custom transitions). One neat thing to note—if you export your Balsamiq prototype as a PDF, the links you embed will still work!

Collaboration capabilities

You can invite peers to view your designs right from the platform via email, and collect feedback that is focused on the layout of content and interactions instead of small details.

The UX of Balsamiq

Balsamiq may be the lowest-fidelity prototyping tool we’ll discuss today, but it certainly has personality! Don’t let the sketch aesthetic fool you into thinking Balsamiq’s platform isn’t well designed. While it may not be your first choice for dynamic prototypes, it is a great tool meant to start big picture UX/content conversations.

5. UXPin

UXPin is another full stack UX platform which supports you from end-to-end in your design process, and specializes in creating high-fidelity interactive prototypes.

Price

• $19/month billed yearly for unlimited prototypes with animations, interactions and states
• $29/month billed yearly for unlimited advanced prototypes with variables, expressions, and logic

Ease of learning

Although UXPin designs are code equipped, it does not require the same steep learning curve of a few of our other prototyping tools which require some coding knowledge (e.g. Webflow and Axure). The platform for editing your wireframes is similar to other popular tools in terms of layout, layers, and property editing panes.

System requirements

• Cloud-based web tool that works from your browser
• Also available as a desktop app for PC or Mac

Deliverables

Wow! UXPin delivers high-fidelity prototypes that I personally can’t differentiate from the real thing. Elaborate animations and conditional interactions which add logic to your design, really set the bar high. For example, during user testing your participant can enter their name in a text field, and when they submit their data—their name will appear in a greeting message on the next page. Conditional interactions are things like setting up password parameters that must be met in order for the user to continue to the next page in the prototype.

Collaboration capabilities

The platform is really built to support big teams and projects with its advanced project management and collaborative sharing features. There is also a way to categorize the input given by your team so you can clearly differentiate the source of technical and non-technical comments.

What it’s like to use UXPin

The upgraded version of UXPin allows for live screen sharing, commenting and importing from Sketch and Photoshop. Importing from Sketch and Photoshop is great because it keeps your sketch layers and assets intact, making it easier to add custom animations and interactions.

To help you in making your decision, UXPin actually has listed at the bottom of their site navigation, ‘UXPin vs. ____’, which compares their tool with almost every other prototyping tool we’ve mentioned in our list.

Although there are extra features to navigate with UXPin, there are hundreds of tutorials online and the end product is so impressive that it’s worth taking the time to learn.

6. Flinto

Flinto is the prototyping tool designed for Mac users to create high-fidelity interactive experiences.

Price

• $99 for a license with one year of free updates

Ease of learning

Flinto is pretty easy to pick up, and looks similar to Sketch’s layout. You don’t have to know any code to use Flinto, and they have a Youtube channel with tutorials—though it hasn’t been updated in almost a year. Other tools seem to be iterating and upgrading more often. Keep that in mind if you are planning to use it as your go-to tool.

System requirements

• Only available for Mac, and it’s preview app is made specifically for iOS

Deliverables

Despite it not being one of the most popular tools I’ve come across, Flinto is great for presenting advanced animations, transitions, and gestures. The prototype you’ll come away with is high-fidelity and viewable on a mobile iOS device or your Mac desktop.

Collaboration capabilities

Flinto is able to import designs from both Sketch and Figma, but also gives you the tools to mockup your own designs or make changes to imported files. Others can view your prototype from a link once they download the previewing app for an iOS device.

The UX of Flinto

Flinto is really focused on interaction design and presenting sophisticated animations, however, it isn’t as complete of a solution as other tools have become. It lacks collaborative capabilities and isn’t going to help with your developer handoff as much as others.

Some notable features include adding UI sound effects to your prototype, unique scrolling, and the ability to design your own animated transitions and micro-interactions.

7. Origami

This unique prototyping tool was created by Facebook designers and has helped build products like Instagram and Messenger.

Price

• Completely free!

Ease of learning

If you’re a beginner and haven’t used any prototyping/design applications before, this may be tricky to learn. There is an active support group on Facebook (obviously), but the tool could use some built-in onboarding. The Origami product page does offer tailored tutorials for people with a programming background and those from a design background—but you should still give yourself extra time to learn this tool.

System requirements

At this time, Origami is only available for Mac, however the prototyping preview app they offer is available for iOS and Android so you can user test on any mobile device.

Deliverables

Origami can create prototypes with intricate interactions for your watch, mobile device, desktop or tablet. You can expect a high-fidelity prototype with some pretty sophisticated interactions to showcase. For example, Instagram’s image straightening feature, where the user can watch as the image and the degrees adjust while they drag their finger along a scale—the prototype exactly mimics the experience you get using the app.

Collaboration capabilities

Origami supports sharing your prototype or viewing it on a device with the application installed, but there aren’t any commenting or co-editing features at this time. However, Origami does collaborate with other tools like Sketch and Figma to help you import your design layers.

What it’s like to use Origami

Origami’s platform is set up a bit different than our other tools. Although the layer organization is similar to Sketch, to add interactivity you will be creating ‘patches’ which show up on your canvas next to the prototype viewer. You’ll specify your interaction in one patch, connect that to a transition patch, and specify your destination in a third patch (as shown in the image above).

Opening up Origami for the first time was a bit intimidating, especially after being ‘taken by the hand’ by many of the other tools with their onboarding and built-in tutorial videos. There are videos on Origami’s website you can walk through, and a few on Youtube. This is a free tool, so I wouldn’t expect the same kind of attention to the beginner UX as other tools.

8. Framer

Framer focuses on smooth team collaboration and rich interactive prototyping.

Price

• Free up to 3 projects with 2 editors
• $16/month billed yearly

Ease of learning

While some have complained that Framer has a bit of a learning curve—the creators claim you can be up and running with basic knowledge in five minutes due to their new comprehensive onboarding. If you’ve used any Adobe tool you’ll recognize the mixture of coach marks and video onboarding. The tutorials play and pause automatically in your workspace each time you’re given a new step to try.

System requirements

• Web application that runs best on Chrome
• Desktop app is for MacOS and only available for Pro users ($33/month)
• Framer Preview allows you to check out your design on any mobile device and is compatible with both Android and iOS.

Deliverables

You can expect high-fidelity interactive prototypes with Framer, for an experience that’s as close to your final product as possible.

Collaboration capabilities

From multiplayer editing, inline commenting, to sharing your prototype in one click—Framer really delivers a great collaborative experience for teams.

The UX of Framer

The Framer platform is familiar to Sketch with its editing panels and layer organization. Framer is great for learning how a developer will receive your design work—for example, the platform allows you to organize similar components into ‘stacks’ that you can edit as a set—which is similar to how a design would be implemented with code.

9. Axure

The all-in-one UX platform that creates rich prototypes and supports quality developer handoff.

Price

• $29/month per user for basic that include unlimited prototypes
• $49/month per user for the team version equipped with coediting, cloud services, and revision history

Ease of learning

Axure’s platform is pretty intuitive and reminiscent of other visual design tools we’ve discussed here. You definitely don’t need to know how to code to create your prototype, but it would help you to know some basic front-end coding so you can understand the language used within the tool.

System requirements

• Available for Windows or MacOS

Deliverables

Axure can produce some of the high quality prototypes for mobile, desktop, or tablet.

Collaboration capabilities

• Team version of Axure has co-editing capabilities, team access to files saved in their cloud server, and history of design revisions made
• Notifications are integrated with Slack for great workflow continuity

The UX of Axure

Axure’s platform is drag and drop, and is reminiscent of Sketch. This tool is great for developer handoff and is regarded for the quality of the code it generates.

Creating your prototypes seems pretty simple, and can get more complex when you implement conditional logic on different triggers (i.e. play animation when page loads). You can also apply advanced animations to your components like show/hide or toggle states.

10. Webflow

A very powerful prototyping tool that your development team will thank you for!

Price

• $35/month

Ease of learning

This is a tool that is designed for someone with basic development knowledge. While anyone can use it, you need to have a basic understanding of HTML5 and CSS. If you were a developer before a designer—Webflow will feel like home.

Deliverables

Webflow produces high-fidelity prototypes for websites or mobile experiences that generate all of the code necessary for your development team to implement your design seamlessly.

Collaboration capabilities

Webflow is set up with a shared dashboard for your whole team to access your prototypes and design files. Designed specifically for collaborative harmony with your dev team—Webflow automatically generates code that your developers can access as you build.

What it’s like to use Webflow

This platform was designed with developers in mind, so although you won’t have to write any code, you will need to understand basic HTML and CSS to understand the language used in the platform. For example, you can drag and drop design elements into your prototype, but they are all labeled as HTML tags (e.g. div block, column, container). Finally, you’ll want to understand how tags and classes work so you can change the styling of multiple elements at a time.

Your interaction panel contains trigger selection, which lets you specify what your trigger will be (e.g. click, scroll, or page loading). It also contains the animation timeline which specifies what will occur during those triggers at what time(e.g. scroll animation that follows the speed of your scroll).

Choosing the best tool for you

While all of these tools will help you create a working prototype, there is bound to be one that suits your needs better. As we’ve seen, the type of prototyping tool you’ll use depends on the goals of your prototype, what kind of team you’re working with, and what skills you already possess. Here are a few statements that summarize the main differences we tackled in the article:

• If you are comfortable working with code, and want to showcase the highest fidelity prototypes—choose something like Axure or Webflow.
• If you regularly handoff your prototypes and designs to developers but don’t know much about code—try UXPin or Framer.
• If you’re in the early stages of your design process and need something quick and content-focused—Balsamiq or Invision might be best.
• If you want to present a polished prototype and primarily use MacOS—use Flinto or Origami.
• If most of your time will be spent designing the wireframes to perfection with a little prototyping—check out Sketch and Figma.

If you’ve settled on a tool and are interested in learning more about prototyping, check out these articles from our blog:

• Your complete introduction to prototyping
• What is rapid prototyping in UX?

And if you want to find some more tools to see throughout the UX design process, here are nine UX design tools to master.

If you’re new to UX, this can be one of the hardest things to get your head around. Even for experienced UXers, the ever-growing list of must-have tools can be daunting. Where do you start?

In this guide, we’ll first cover the five essentials (the five bare minimum tools you need), then we’ll talk about each aspect of the design process and our top tools for each. Here’s the plan:

1. UX design tools: Just the essentials
2. Tools for UX research
3. UX tools for ideation
4. Tools for prototyping and wireframing
5. User testing tools
6. Tools for project management
7. What next?

1. UX design tools: Just the essentials

What are the essential UX design tools you need to get started? Here’s our list of essentials. A starter kit, if you will:

• A tool for project management and communication. Our pick: Asana.
• A tool for creating surveys. Our pick: SurveyMonkey.
• One for conducting user interviews. Our pick: Your favorite video chat software + recording capability (or awesome note-taking skills).
• Another for ideation and collaboration. Our pick: Miro.
• A tool for prototyping and wireframing: Our pick: Figma.

Eventually, you’ll also need a tool to test your designs. This often depends on what tools your company is already using, but if you get to choose your own, we like to use UsabilityHub and Optimizely.

2. Tools for UX research

Before you start designing anything, you need to know exactly what you’re designing for. As Jeff Humble, our Head of Design here at CareerFoundry, puts it: you want to fall in love with the problem, not the solution. 

You need to identify the who, what and why of your project—which means research! Surveys and polls are a good place to start, and will enable you to reach a wide audience quickly.

Here are three survey/polling tools you can start with:

• Typeform. A free account will give you access to 100 responses per month, and you can include up to 10 fields per typeform.
• SurveyMonkey. Conduct online surveys and use the Audience feature to carry out global market research for large-scale projects.
• Google Forms. It might not come with bells and whistles, but you can easily craft your survey, track responses and visualize the results.

If you want to dig a little deeper into the needs and goals of your users, you’ll want to conduct some user interviews. And our favorite way to do that? A good, “old-fashioned” video chat. Users can stay in the comfort of their own homes as share their experiences and insights. Just schedule the call on your favorite video chatting app (i.e. Skype, Facetime, Google Meet, Zoom) and there you go.

Most video calling software includes (usually in a paid version) recording capability. We recommend taking advantage of this feature or downloading a tool like Callnote. And why? Because you’re likely going to want to return to those interviews to capture quotes, observe users’ behavior and more.

3. UX tools for ideation

After you’ve done the research and you understand the problems your users actually want you to solve, it’s time to solve those problems!

This is where the experimentation really begins. At this stage, you’re considering different angles from which to approach the problem, so you can be skimpy on the details.

If you’re looking for a digital venue for your ideation (on your own or with a team), check out Miro, Mural, or Lucidspark.

If you want to go analog, just head back to the basics. All you really need here is pen and paper, a whiteboard or even a chalkboard—anywhere you can draw freely and spontaneously. If you want to do some more active ideation, there are a lot of design thinking exercises that can guide your efforts.

Once you’ve come up with a few ideas and sketches, you can start prototyping, testing, and building those final wireframes.

4. Tools for prototyping and wireframing

By now, you’ve narrowed it down to one or two approaches. Your next challenge is to take these sketches and turn them into working prototypes and, eventually, detailed wireframes for handoff to your developer.

Even though there are significant differences between prototypes and wireframes, tools for prototyping and tools for wireframing make for a Venn diagram with a lot of crossover. Here are our favorite tools that you can use to accomplish both tasks:

• Sketch
• Balsamiq
• Figma

If you want to keep your prototyping and wireframing in separate tools for any reason, Mockplus and InVision are great for the former and you should definitely check out Wireframe.cc and Whimsical for the latter.

Play around with a few different programs until you find what works for you. Just remember: fancy functions and features are great, but don’t fall down that UI rabbit hole! Functionality is the goal here.

To learn even more about wireframing check out this guide: How To Make Wireframes For Mobile Apps And Websites — And What’s The Difference?

5. User testing tools

Once you have a detailed wireframe that solves your users’ problem(s), you can send it off to your developers.

But that’s not the end of the design process! After your product is alive in the world, there will always be ways you can improve and iterate on the user experience. Thankfully, there are loads of tools out there to help you do this. Here are our favorites:

• UsabilityHub
• Optimizely.
• HotJar
• UserZoom
• UserTesting

As with any of the tools we’ve suggested so far, you’ll want to explore each tool to see if it’s suited to the way you work and your company’s goals.

6. Tools for project management

In an exploration of the best tools for UX designers, it’s easy to overlook the tools that keep the UX ball rolling. All that project management and communication and collaboration that keeps you in touch with stakeholders and stakeholder aware of what’s going on, you in touch with others on your team, and the list goes on.

Beyond communication tools like Slack and Zoom (and all the others that are such a part of work life these days), let’s look at some amazing tools that we recommend exploring for project management

• Asana. Fantastic for project management, knowing what needs to be done and who’s working on what. It’s also got commenting features and ways to attach files and link out to other files.
• Airtable. Another high-power collaboration tool that can be used for everything from project management to organizing and storing content, linking out to visual examples, attaching files, and more.
• Alternative (and also fantastic) tools: Trello, Monday.

Again, the tool(s) you adopt will depend on what kinds of projects you undertake, who’s collaborating, and how they need to collaborate.

7. What next?

So there you have it: the most essential tools to see you through the entire design process. The next step is to hop onto some free versions and free trials to see what works best for you!

But don’t forget that UX design isn’t all about the tools you use. There are loads of UX design skills, as well as non-design skills (like storytelling) that you need to cultivate in order to really make an impact.

Further reading

• The Top 5 Tools For Freelancing Like A Pro
• The 8 Wireframing Tools Every UX Designer Needs To Know
• The Essential Tools Every UI Designer Needs To Know

UX design is the design of the elements that determine the interaction a user has with a product or service.

UX design molds the products and services we use daily to make them easy to use, efficient, and enjoyable for the end-users. Its impact is such that it can make or break a business or brand!

In this guide, we’ll take you through the most important aspects of UX design. We’ll look at the basics of what it is, the value UX design brings, and outline how you can become a UX designer yourself.

1. What is UX design?
   • Difference between UX and UI design
2. What does a UX designer do?
   • Process
   • Tasks
   • Tools
   • Skills
3. The value of UX design
4. How to become a UX designer
5. Next steps

Let’s get started!

1. What is UX design?

UX design considers the elements that shape a user’s experience with a product or service, how these elements make the user feel, and how easy it is to accomplish their desired tasks.

This could mean anything from how a physical product feels in your hand to how straightforward the checkout process is when buying something online. The goal of UX design is to create easy, efficient, relevant, and all-around pleasant experiences for the user.

“User experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.”
— Don Norman, Cognitive Scientist & User Experience Architect

UX designers combine market research, product development, strategy, and design to create seamless user experiences for products, services, and processes.

They build a bridge to the customer, helping the company to understand better—and fulfill—their needs and expectations. UX design is everywhere: the layout of a supermarket, the ergonomics of a vehicle, and the usability of a mobile app.

In this video overview, designer Dee explains what UX design is all about:

1.1 The difference between UX and UI design

When discussing UX, user interface (UI) design will inevitably crop up. However, it’s important to recognize that, despite often being used interchangeably, UX and UI are two different things.

UI refers to the actual interface of a product, the visual design of the screens a user navigates through when using a mobile app, or the buttons they click when browsing a website.

UI design is concerned with all the visual and interactive elements of a product interface, covering everything from typography and color palettes to animations and navigational touch points (such as buttons and scrollbars).

“UX is focused on the user’s journey to solve a problem; UI is focused on how a product’s surfaces look and function.”
— Ken Norton, Partner at Google Ventures, Ex-Product Manager at Google

UX and UI go hand-in-hand, and the design of the product interface has a huge impact on the overall user experience.

Learn more about the difference between UX and UI design in this guide.

2. What does a UX designer do?

“How do I explain what I do at a party? The short version is that I say I humanize technology.”
— Fred Beecher, Director of UX, The Nerdery

UX designers seek to make everyday products, services, and technology as user-friendly and accessible as possible. They employ design thinking to reconcile the user’s desires with technical feasibility and business viability.

2.1. The Design Thinking Process

The following diagram shows the Design Thinking Process, adapted from the d.school. The Design Thinking Process can be broken down into four different stages: inspiration, conceptualization, iteration, and exposition.

During the inspiration stage, the UX designer seeks to understand and observe. To do this, they conduct extensive research and competitor analysis to fully grasp the problem or challenge they are setting out to solve. This involves interviewing those who are, or will be, directly engaged with the product.

The user experience designer then uses this feedback to identify the user’s goals, emotions, pain points, and behaviors. All of this information helps to form user personas.

The next step is to consider what these personas are trying to accomplish when using a particular product and the journey they will take. The designer considers information architecture and uses various techniques, such as card sorting, to map out user flows.

2.2. What are a UX designer’s tasks?

Once the user flows have been determined, the designer knows what steps the user needs to take to complete their desired tasks. They will visually brainstorm solutions for each of these steps, creating wireframes and prototypes of what the final product might look like.

With prototypes to hand, the UX designer will then conduct usability tests to see how users interact with the product. This shows whether or not the user can complete their desired tasks or if changes need to be made.

UX designers not only come up with solutions to user problems; they also need to present their ideas and designs to key stakeholders as part of their day-to-day work.

Company size determines the scope of what a UX designer does

This is just a broad overview of the UX design process. In reality, tasks will vary depending on both the size and the specific needs of the company.

Larger companies might employ a team of designers, each focusing on a specific aspect of the process, such as research or visual design.

In smaller companies and startups, it’s not unusual for the UX designer to wear many hats and take on the whole spectrum of tasks.

Key questions UX designers ask themselves

No matter what product or service they are designing or what stage of the process they are at, UX designers will ask themselves the following questions:

• Is the product usable? Is it logical, self-explanatory, and easy to use?
• Does the product or service solve an existing user problem?
• Is it accessible to different categories of users? You can read more about accessibility in design further on.
• Is the product or service desirable? Does it create a positive experience that the user would happily repeat?

Learn more: What Does a UX Designer Actually Do?

2.3. What tools do UX designers use?

UX designers rely on several different tools as they go about their work.

At the research and inspiration stage, they will use survey and polling tools and video chat software to interview users and gather as much information as possible.

There are also specific programs for wireframing, prototyping, and usability testing, with Balsamiq, InVision, and UsabilityHub among the most popular in the industry.

AI tools are also becoming popular as ways to tackle simpler tasks more efficiently. For more info, read our full guide on the impact of AI on UX design.

In addition to design-specific programs, designers use communication and project management tools to keep track of their work at all times.

You can learn more about UX design tools in our beginner’s guide.

2.4. What kinds of projects do UX designers work on?

As the tech industry grows, the field of UX design is becoming increasingly varied. UX designers can find themselves working on a wide range of projects within various contexts. The following are just some applications for UX design.

Website, app, and software design

In the age of the internet and smartphones, the usability of a website, mobile app, or piece of software will largely determine its success on the market. Together with UI designers, UX designers are responsible for ensuring a smooth online experience for the user.

From e-commerce websites to dating apps, from CRM software to web-based email clients, each and every online journey you take has been carefully designed by a UX professional.

Voice design

Voice user interfaces are revolutionizing the way we interact with technology. In the U.S., around 50% of adults use voice search on a daily basis, and ComScore estimates that, in the early 2020s, 50% of all searches will be voice-based.

UX designers have a huge role to play in the rise of voice, as products like Amazon Alexa can only be successful if they are user-friendly and accessible to the masses. Designing for voice requires a slightly different approach to that of websites and apps: learn more in this beginner’s guide to VUI design.

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR)

With the global VR market expected to be worth around $44.7 billion by 2024, UX designers will increasingly be required to design immersive experiences. Likewise, since the Pokemon Go craze hit, augmented reality has also been working its way into the mainstream. More and more, UX designers will have to adapt their approach to ensure the latest technologies are accessible and user-friendly.

Service design

UX design doesn’t only apply to tangible objects and digital products; experiences need to be designed, too. This is where service design comes in.

As explained on its Wikipedia page: “Service design is the activity of planning and organizing people, infrastructure, communication and material components of a service to improve its quality and the interaction between the service provider and its customers. Service design may function to inform changes to an existing service or create a new service entirely.”

Whenever you buy a coffee, stay in a hotel, or use public transport, your experience results from service design, and service design methodology is very similar to that of classic UX design.

2.5. What skills does a UX designer use?

UX designers come from all walks of life, and you don’t necessarily need a university degree to break into the field. Many people switch to UX design after gaining experience in another field—like psychology, computer science, marketing, or customer service.

Employers tend to look for a mixture of design skills, business acumen, and soft skills.

Some requirements you will often see in UX designer job descriptions include:

• Proficiency in creating user stories, personas, sitemaps, wireframes, prototypes, and storyboards
• Ability to plan and conduct user testing, surveys, and formal evaluations
• Ability to iterate your work based on user testing data and qualitative feedback
• Understanding of interaction design principles and information architecture
• Ability to translate goals, objectives, and data into digital experiences
• Understanding of business metrics and how your designs contribute to performance
• Strong communication and presentation skills; an ability to articulate and discuss your design decisions with clients and stakeholders (storytelling is key)
• Flexibility and adaptability

What counts as essential or desirable will vary depending on the company and the nature of the role.

You can learn more about key UX design skills in our guide.

3. The value of UX design

The definition of a UX designer’s role will vary depending on which industry or company you talk to. There’s a growing tendency for companies to hire for very specific roles, such as UX researcher or interaction designer, to cover all of the different aspects of user experience.

But one thing remains constant: From a user perspective, good UX design enables us to go about our daily lives as effortlessly as possible. From setting an alarm to chatting with friends online, listening to music, or using a calendar app, the ease with which we complete these actions results from good design.

When designing these experiences, UX designers must consider how they can bring value to all kinds of users. They do this by practicing inclusive design: universal or accessible design.

3.1 Universal design (UD)

Universal Design in UX design is about creating products, services, environments, and interfaces accessible and usable by a diverse range of people, regardless of their abilities, disabilities, age, gender, cultural background, or other characteristics. The goal of universal design is to ensure that everyone, regardless of their individual differences, can effectively interact with and benefit from the designed experience.

Universal design follows seven key principles:

1. Equitable use: The design is useful and marketable to people with diverse abilities.
2. Flexibility in use: The design accommodates a wide range of individual preferences and abilities.
3. Simple and intuitive use: The use of the design is easy to understand, regardless of the user’s experience, knowledge, language skills, or current concentration level.
4. Perceptible information: The design communicates necessary information effectively to the user, regardless of ambient conditions or the user’s sensory abilities.
5. Tolerance for error: The design minimizes hazards and the adverse consequences of accidental or unintended actions.
6. Low physical effort: The design can be used efficiently and comfortably and with a minimum of fatigue.
7. Size and space for approach and use: Appropriate size and space is provided for approach, reach, manipulation, and use regardless of the user’s body size, posture, or mobility.

Learn more:

• 7 Universal design principles to follow to make your UX inclusive
• Why simplicity is essential in UX design

3.2 Good design is good business

From a business perspective, designing first-class user experiences is key to ensuring customer satisfaction and building brand loyalty. Only if a product or service is hassle-free and enjoyable will the user want to return.

“Good design is good business.”
— Thomas Watson Jr., CEO, IBM

3.3 The competitive advantage of design-driven companies

According to a study conducted by the Design Management Institute, design-driven companies consistently outperformed the S&P 500 by 219% over a 10-year period. Furthermore, a study commissioned by Adobe found that design thinking in business creates a measurable competitive advantage. Design-led companies reported 41% higher market share, 50% more loyal customers, and 46% competitive advantage overall.

User-friendly, universal design is beneficial to everyone, and UX designers are in a position to truly shape the world around us.

4. How to become a UX designer

As we have seen, UX design is an extremely multifaceted field. Working in UX requires a highly diverse skillset and a passion for user-centric design.

A career in UX can be very varied, challenging, and financially rewarding; according to Glassdoor, the average salary for a User Experience Designer in the United States is $97,460.

There is no standard background or path that leads to a career in UX.

However, the best UX designers typically share certain qualities and attributes, including:

• An ability to think both creatively and analytically
• A strong gift for empathy and a user-first mindset
• An interest in technology and how humans interact with it
• Strong problem-solving skills
• Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate

To get started in UX design, it’s important to do plenty of reading and research to get to know the UX workflow, familiarize yourself with industry tools and build up a solid design portfolio.

Read our full guide on how to become a UX designer.

5. Next steps

Now that you’ve seen what a UX designer is, the value and impact of the field, and more, you might want to begin your journey into the field.

Find out what exactly you should learn in a UX design course in our guide. 

Or jump right in and take our free UX design short course. You can also speak directly with a program advisor.

If you found this article interesting, you might also enjoy these:

• How to become a UX designer in 2023
• What qualifications do you need to be a UX designer?
• A day in the life of a UX designer

But now there’s a new question you’re likely asking yourself: “Exactly which UX design role is right for me?”

Will you become a UX designer? A product designer? Maybe a UX writer? Don’t worry; we’re here to help.

Take our free UX design quiz to see which UX design job suits you best.

Our UX design quiz is designed to help you find the right UX role for your needs—to discover the options, provide clarity, and instill confidence in your career choice.

The UX design quiz

Our free UX design quiz asks 10 straightforward questions to assess your interest and skills against the different areas of UX design to determine which UX role is best suited to you.

You should be able to complete the UX career test in under five minutes. Good luck!

One of the best things about UX design is the many different tasks that come into play, requiring different skills and impacting different aspects of the UX design process. This also means UX has several specialist roles, such as UX researcher, visual designer, UX strategist, UX researcher, product designer, and more.

The UX design quiz takes your answers and compares them to the different specialist areas within UX design, determining which role is suited to your unique personality, motivations, and strengths.

After checking out the results, dive into the info in the last section to learn more about the UX role that’s right for you, get tips on how to chase those opportunities, and take your UX career to the next level. Or just keep reading for some detailed advice on boosting your UX career dreams.

Next steps

Well done on completing the “Which UX design job is right for me?” quiz. 

The UX design quiz was a strong first step: your next is to investigate your recommended UX path further. To help you get started, we’ve included some guides on different UX roles:

• UX designer
• UX writer
• Product designer
• UX researcher
• Visual/graphic designer
• UX strategist

Want to dive straight in and test out the waters? Try CareerFoundry’s free short course on UX design.

The next step in your UX journey will be about honing your skills and ensuring that user satisfaction remains the driving force behind your designs.

Here are five key ways to prepare for a career in UX design:

• Upskilling: Master essential tools and techniques through courses and tutorials
• Mentorship: Gain insights and guidance from experienced professionals
• Networking: Connect with peers and industry experts to stay updated
• Portfolio: Showcase your skills through a well-organized portfolio
• Experience: Seek internships, freelance work, or projects for hands-on learning

Whether you’re diving into crafting interfaces, analyzing user data, or enhancing digital interactions, the UX design field offers ample room for a prosperous and exciting career. Embrace your chosen path, keep refining your skills, and always put the user experience at the forefront of your design decisions.

Speak directly to a UX design program advisor to learn more about CareerFoundry’s full-length UX design program—and the CareerFoundry job guarantee.

The CareerFoundry UX Design Program prepares you for a career in any of the different fields of UX design—and more.

If you found this article interesting, then try these next:

• A Guide to UX Designer Job Descriptions & How to Interpret Them
• The Impact of AI in UX Design: The Complete Guide
• What Is User Experience (UX) Design? Everything You Need to Know

Some designers say graphic design began in the 11th century with the introduction of moveable-type printing that allowed humans to reproduce language or drawings on paper. 

Others argue that the discipline started much earlier, around 35,000 BC when early cave drawings and hieroglyphs were believed to have been created. 

So what is graphic design in 2023, and how do you categorize something with such broad origins?

Graphic design contains many categories, sub-categories, and mediums. As technological advancements have developed, graphic design has grown from ancient pictographs to mass print publications, eye-catching advertisements, and intricate digital designs. 

To achieve its end goals, graphic design uses essential underlying principles and elements, many of which are equally as important for other disciplines, such as UX design or photography.  

It’s a wide, important field. To break things down a bit, we’ve created this extensive guide on what graphic design encompasses and how to define it. Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What is graphic design?
• Graphic design basics 
  • Elements
  • Principles
• What are the different types of graphic design?
• Where graphic design meets UX/UI
• Key takeaways

1. What is graphic design?

Graphic design is the practice of creating and using visual or textual content to communicate ideas to an audience or elicit a specific effect.

That’s why graphic design is commonly categorized as a form of communication design.

Visuals in this context can take on many forms. From a company logo, event flyer, newspaper layout, business website, mobile app, or video game, graphic design encompasses many different media and sub-categories. 

Graphic designs are often created with a specific goal in mind, usually relating to a company or business plan.

The design choices should align with this goal to produce a visually pleasing yet practical creation: graphic design is like art but guided by business objectives.

For instance, someone may design a music festival flyer to advertise the bands that will perform and give viewers a sense of what type of vibe they can expect to experience if attending.

An upbeat, electronic music festival flyer will likely have very different text, color, image, and design choices than a folk music festival flyer. 

Source: Goabase and Posterlounge

So, graphic design is a way a company can connect to its customers or stakeholders to communicate the feeling, energy, or message of its brand, products, events, and projects.  

2. Graphic design basics

When asking “what is graphic design?” it’s crucial to understand the elements that comprise it.

Graphic designers approach their work using a set of elements and principles that help ensure their designs make sense to the viewers and convey the message(s) they intend. Here’s a quick breakdown of the basics.

Elements

Elements are the building blocks of graphic design.

Each category below is a basic unit that gives the design structure, form, and feeling. It is crucial to set the right tone, provide balance and hierarchy, and evoke emotion. 

Line

Lines connect two points in space and are used to divide space or bring the viewer’s eye to a specific part of the design.

Color 

Color is an essential element of design as it can quickly evoke certain moods or emotions. Used in typography, lines, backgrounds, images, or shapes, designers also consider hue, saturation, and value when selecting colors.

Shape

Shapes are combinations of lines to create a two-dimensional defined area. They can be abstract, geometrical, or organic and recognizable. Similar to color, shapes can elicit an emotional response.

Size and scale

The size of an aspect is often used to stress its importance: Designing with contrasting sizes creates a visual hierarchy or adds emphasis to specific parts of the design.

Space

White, negative, or intentionally blank areas help with readability, prevent overcrowding, and emphasize different design parts.

Texture

Texture describes how something looks like it would feel if someone were to touch it, and might mimic things like stone, brick, fabric, paper, or sand.

Typography

Typography refers to how type is arranged in space to create legible, engaging designs. The size, weight, color, spacing, and font choice all significantly impact the design’s message.

Principles

Graphic design principles refer to the best practices designers use in arranging the elements above on the page in a way that is engaging and connects them.

Balance 

The balance of a design considers how elements are distributed, but it only sometimes means symmetry. In fact, graphic designers may use both symmetrical and asymmetrical design tactics to create stability for the former or dynamism with the latter.

Alignment

Good alignment keeps the design organized and the viewer’s eyes engaged. Generally, the design elements are aligned with the top, bottom, sides, and center to create a visual connection.

Designers also utilize alignment rules like the golden ratio or rule of thirds that help ensure effective communication.

Repetition 

Repeating some aspects throughout your design helps ensure consistency. It can tie together certain elements and keep things organized. Without it, the design can feel incohesive or confusing to the viewer. 

Proximity

Where elements are placed in relation to one another can help provide an area of focus, minimize clutter, and ensure that viewers know what message you’re trying to send.

Contrast

Emphasizing differences between elements helps certain design aspects stand out more than others. You can highlight critical features using color, shape, size, or even texture. 

If you’re interested in the underlying principles of graphic design, you might enjoy reading about the principles of design.

3. What are the different types of graphic design?

Part of what makes the question of “What is graphic design” such a broad one is how many different subtypes there are.

We’ve laid out some of the most common graphic design specialties below. Remember that each discipline may utilize print, digital, or both types of mediums. 

Publication design 

Graphic designers in publication design generally create for things like books, newspapers, magazines, or newsletters. However, even these things have become digitized, and publication design now includes e-books, online newsletters, articles, etc.

Publication designers focus heavily on typography, illustration, and layouts that coincide with the desires of the authors and editors on the team. 

Packaging design 

This subtype of graphic design encompasses any label, sticker, or packaging used to contain and advertise physical products.

Packaging designers must be aware of current trends for similar products, the general feel and message the company wants to express about the product, the feasibility of their designs, and any regulations that need to be met. 

Environmental design

This graphic design specialty is less commonly known but is frequently encountered. Environmental design curates elements in specific locations that help people interact with the space, make their experience memorable, or enhance the natural, social, or cultural habitat.

Some examples are murals, urban planning, road signs and other signage, architecture, event space planning, and interior design. 

Marketing, advertising, and corporate design

This graphic design specialty is what most people consider when graphic design comes to mind. Products used in brand marketing, like company logos, newsletters, email templates, magazine ads, flyers, and brochures, are the most well-known types of graphic designs.

Any visual element that helps advertise and communicate a company’s identity or services falls under this sub-specialty. 

Motion graphics

Motion graphics takes graphic design elements and brings them to life via animations, special effects, GIFs, games, or videos. These could be in movies, TV shows, commercials and advertising, video games, or even app and website features. 

Compared to print and publication design, motion graphics is still a relatively new subset of design. However, this field is expected to grow with more things becoming entertainment-based and digitized. 

Web and UX/UI design

While not a branch of graphic design per se, web and UX/UI design share a lot of overlap as many elements and principles are the same. For instance, web and UX/UI designers are very focused on layouts, color theory, typography, animations, and illustrations when designing pleasing to look at web pages and apps. 

However, in contrast to graphic design, web and UX design focus more on ease of use and navigation, intuitiveness, desirability, and engagement. We’ll get into this overlap between the disciplines a bit more below.

4. Where graphic design meets UX design

Graphic design and UX have a lot in common. Both aim to inform the viewer and communicate a message or idea to them in a way that’s effective and visually pleasing. 

Graphic designers and UX designers may even work on the same teams or the same projects. However, there is a difference between these two disciplines that is important to keep in mind. 

To explore this difference, let’s think of a hypothetical situation where both a graphic designer and a UX designer design a company website separately. 

Because a graphic designer’s focus is visual messages, they will likely focus on ensuring the brand’s feel is communicated well and the elements on each page are visually appealing. 

The UX designer will usually focus more on functionality, usability, and the overall flow of the site. 

You’ll likely end up with a captivating, visually stunning website from the graphic designer and an intuitive, easy-to-navigate site from the UX designer.

However, something aesthetically wonderful to look at still needs to serve a purpose and have functionality. Conversely, a highly-intuitive product might not capture a viewer’s eyes or appeal to their emotions if it is lacking in pleasing visuals.

The most successful product designs take the approach of both disciplines into account and combine usability with engaging visual designs. 

A website that’s nice to look at still needs to offer clear calls to action, smooth navigation processes, and uncomplicated accessibility features for a user’s needs to be met. 

Therefore, utilizing graphic design principles in UX offers users eye-catching, harmonious designs that are still easy to use and help users achieve their goals. 

5. Key takeaways

So, what is graphic design? Clearly, the answer is a big one.

Graphic design is a broad field that can significantly impact human behavior. How messages are presented and communicated to us influences our purchasing decisions, how we interpret the world, and how we interact with others and our environment.

There are many ways to become a graphic designer and many different sub-specialties. Other professions, like UX or marketing, rely on graphic design principles to create successful products. 

It’s an adaptive field with massive potential for growth as technology advances and further integrates into our way of life. 

If you’d like to learn more about its market demand, read our article on the graphic design salary.

If you’d like to learn more, check out the articles below. And if you’re interested in diving deeper into the world of UX design, try our free short course. 

• Graphic Design to UX Design: The 2022 Career Change Guide
• Switching From Graphic Design to UI Design
• Is UX Design a Good Career? The Complete 2023 Guide